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ELAINE 






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Alfred Tennyson. 



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NEW YORK: 

Claek <fe Maynard, Publishers, 

734 Broadway. 

1885. 



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LANGUA GE LESSONS-GRAMMAR-COMPOSITION. 



A Complete Course in Two Books Only. 



1. GRADED LESSONS IN ENGLISH. 

168 pages, 16mo. Bound in linen. 

2. HIGHEI\ LESSONS IN ENGLISH. 

288 pages, 16mo. Bound in cloth. 

By Alonzo Reed, A.M., Instructor in English Grammar in Brook- 
lyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute ; and Brainekd Kellogg^ 
A.M., Professor of English Language and Literature in Brooklyn 
Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute. 



TWELVE POINTS WHEREIN WE CLAIM THESE WORl'.S TO EXCEL. 

l*?rtn.— The science of the language is made tributary to the a-t of expression. 
Every principle is fixed in memory and in practice, by an exhaus\ive drill in com- 
posing sentences, arranging and rearranging their parts, contract uig, expanding, 
punctuating, and criticismg them. There is thus given a complete course in tech- 
nical grammar and composition, more thorougli and attractive than 'f each subject 
were treated separately. 

Graniiuar and Cotnjyosition taught together. ^'W^e claim th*. t grammar 
and composition can be better and more economically taught together than sepa- 
rately ; tuat each helps the other and furnishes the occasion to teach tne other ; and 
that both can be taught together in the time that would be required for either alone. 

A. Complete Course in Granitnar and Composition, in only two Books. 
—The two books completelj" cover the ground of grammar and composition, from 
the time the scholar usually begins the study imtil it is finished in the High School or 
Academy. 

Method.— Th.e author's method iu teaching in these books is as follows : (1) Tne 
principles are presented inductively "in the " Hiilts for Oral Instruction." (2) This 
instruction is ca;'ef«lly gathered up in brief definitions for the pupil to memorize. 
(3) A variety of exercises in analysis, parsing, and composition is given, which im- 
press the principles on the mind of the scholar and compel him to understand them. 

Authors — Practical Teac/jer».— The books were prepared by men who have 
made a life-work of teaching grammar and composition, and both of them occupy 
high positions in their profession. 

Grading. —'No pains have been spared in grading the books so as to afford the 
least possible difficulty to the young student. This is very important and could 
scarcely be accomplished by any who are not practical teachers. ,, 

Definitions.— The definitions, principles, and rules are stated in the same lan- 
guage in both books, and cannot be excelled. - "' 

3Iodels for I'ar sing. —The models for parsing are simple, original and worthy 
of careful attention. 

System of Diagrams .—The system of diagrams, altliongh it forms no vital part 
of the works, is the best extant. The advantage of the use of diagrams is : (1) They 
present the analysis to the eye. (2) They are stimulating and helpful to the pupil in 
the preparation of his lessons. (3) They enable the teacher to examine the work of 
a class in about the time he could examine one pupil, if the oral method alone were 
used. 

Sentences for A nalysis. — The sentences for analysis have been selected with 
great care and are of unusual excellence. 

Questions and Revietrs. — There is a more thorough system of questions and 
reviews than in any other works of the kind. 

Cheapness.— Ixi introducing these books, there is a great saving of money, as 
the prices for first introduction, and for subsequent use, are very low. 

CLARK & MAYNARD, Publishers, 
''JN lO 1Q35 734 Broadway, N. T, 



No. 56. 

ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES. 



ELAINE, 



FROM THE 



Idyls of The King 

By ALFRED TENNYSON. 



A 



® 




WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND WITH NOTES. 

By BRAINERD KELLOGG, M.A. 

PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE BROOKLY> 
COLLEGIATE AND POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 



NEW YORK: 
Clark & Maynard, Publishers, 

771 Broadway, and 67 & 69 Ninth St. 



Two-Book Series of Arithmetics. 

B7 James B. Thomson, LL.D., author of a Mathematical Course. 

1. FIRST LESSONS IN ARITHMETIC, Oral and Written. 

Fully and handsomely illustrated. For Primary Schools. 144 pp. 
16mo, cloth. 

2. A COMPLETE GRADED ARITHMETIC, Oral and Writ- 

ten, upon the Inductive Method of Instruction. For Schools 
and Academies. 400 pp. 12mo, cloth. 

This entirely new series of Arithmetics by Dr. Thomson has been 
prepared to meet the demand for a complete course in two books. The 
following embrace some of the characteristic features of the books: 

First Lessons.— This volume is intended for Primary Classes. It is 
divided into Six Sections, and each Section into Twenty Lessons. These 
Sections cover the ground generally required in large cities for promotion 
from grade to grade. 

The book is handsomely illustrated. Oral and slate exercises are com- 
bined throughout. Addition and Subtraction are taught in connection, 
and also Multiplication and Division. This is believed to be in accordance 
with the best methods of teaching these subjects. 



Complete Graded,— This book unites in one volume Oral and 
Written Arithmetic upon the inductive method of instruction. Its aim is 
twofold : to develop the intellect of the pupil, and to prepare him for the 
actual business of life. In securing these objects, it takes the most direct 
road to a practical knowledge of Arithmetic. 

The pupil is led by a few simple, appropriate examples to infer for 
himself the general principles upon which the operations and rules depend, 
instead of taking them upon the authority of the author without explana- 
tion. He Is thus taught to put the steps of particular solutions into a 
concise statement, or general formula. This method of developing prin- 
ciples is an important feature. 

It has been a cardinal point to make the explanations simple, the steps 
In the reasoning short and logical, and the definitions and rules brief, clear 
and comprehensive. 

The discussion of topics which belong exclusively to the higher depart- 
ments of the science is avoided; while subjects deemed too diffl cult to be 
appreciated by beginners, but important for them when more advanced, 
are placed in the Appendix, to be used at the discretion of the teacher. 

Arithmetical puzzles and paradoxes, and problems relating to subjects 
having a demoralizing tendency, as gambling, etc., are excluded. All that 
is obsolete in the former Tables of Weights and Measures is eliminated, and 
the part retained is corrected in accordance with present law and usage. 

Examples for Practice, Problems for Review, and Test Questions are 
abundant in number and variety, and all are different from those in the 
author's Pi-actical Arithmetic. 

The arrangement of subjects is systematic; no principle is anticipated, 
or used in the explanation of another, until it has itself been explained. 
Subjects intimately connected are grouped together in the order of their 
dependence. 

Teachers and School Oflficers, who are dissatisfied with the Arith- 
metics they have in use, are invited to confer with the publisl^rs. 



Clark & Maynard, Publishers, New York. 

Copyright, 1885. by Clark Ssf Maynard. 






Biographical and General Introduction, 



*' Alfred Tennyson was born August 5, 1809, at Somersby 
a hamlet in Lincolnshire, England, of which, and of a neigh- 
boring parish, his father, Dr. George Clayton Tennyson, was 
rector. The poet's mother was Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. 
Stephen Fytche, vicar of Louth. Alfred was the third of seven 
sons — Frederick, Charles, Alfred, Edward, Horatio, Arthur, 
and Septimus. A daughter, Cecilia, becam e the wife of Edmund 
Law Lushington, long professor of Greek in Glasgow Univer- 
sity. Whether there were other daughters, the biographies of 
the poet do not mention. 

Tennyson's career as a poet dates back as far as 1827, in which 
year, he being then but eighteen years of age, he published 
anonymously, in connection with his brother Charles (who was 
only thirteen months his senior, having been born July 4, 1808), 
a small* volume, entitled Poetns hy Two Brothers. The Preface, 
which is dated March, 1827, states that the poems contained in 
the volume ' were written from the ages of fifteen to eighteen, 
not conjointly, but individually; which may account for the 
difference of style and matter.' 

In 1828, or early in 1829, these two brothers entered Trinity 
College, Cambridge, M^here their eldest brother, Frederick, had 
already entered. At the Cambridge Commencement in 1829, 
Alfred took the Chancellor's gold medal, by his poem entitled 
Tbnbiictoo. That appears to have been the first year of his ac- 
quaintance, which soon ripened into an ardent friendship, with 
Arthur Henry Hallam ; this friendship, as we learn from the 
twenty-second section of Zw Memoriatn, having been, at the 
death of Hallam, of 'four sweet years,' ' duration. It is an in- 
teresting fact that Hallam was one of Tennyson's rival com- 
petitors for the Chancellor's prize. His j^oem is dated June, 
1829. It is contained in his Literary Remains. Among other 
of Tennyson's friends at the University were John Mitchell 

3 



4 BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 

Kemble, the Anglo-Saxon scholar ; William Henry Brookfield, 
long an eloquent preacher in London ; James Spedding, the 
biographer and editor of Lord Bacon ; Henry Alford, Dean of 
Canterbury ; Richard Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord 
Houghton), who united the poet and the politician, and Avas 
the biographer of Keats ; and Richard Chenevix Trench, who 
became Dean of Westminster, in 1856, and Archbishop of Dub- 
lin, in 1864. A brilliant array of college friends ! 

Tennyson's prize poem was published shortly after the Cam- 
bridge Commencement of 1829, and was very favorably noticed 
in The Athenceum of July 22, 1829. In it can already be recog- 
nized much of the real Tennyson. There are, indeed, but very 
few poets whose earliest productions exhibit so much of their 
after selves. The real Byron, the most vigorous in his diction 
of all modern poets, hardly appears at all in his Hours of Idle- 
ness, which was published when he was about the age of Tenny- 
son was when Timbuctoo was published. 

In 1830 appeared Poems, chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson. 
In this volume appeared, among others, the poems entitled 
Ode to 3Iemory, The Poet, The PoeVs Mind, The Deserted 
House, and The Sleeping Beauty, which were full of promise, 
and struck key-notes of future works. The reviews of the 
volume mingled praise and blame — the blame j^erhaps being 
predominant. In 1832 appeared Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 
among which were included The Lady of Shalott, The Miller's 
Daughter, The Palace of Art, The Lotos Eaters, and A Dream 
of Fair Women, all showing a great advance in workmanship 
and a more distinctly articulate utterance— many of the poems 
of the previous volumes being rather artist-studies in vowel 
and melody suggestiveness. It was reviewed, somewhat face- 
tiously, in The Quarterly, July, 1833, (vol. 49, pp. 81-96,) by, as 
was generally understood, John Gibson Lockhart, the son-in- 
law of Sir Walter Scott, at that time editor of The Quarterly ; 
and in a more earnest and generous vein, by John Stuart Mill, 
in The Westminster, July, 1835. 

A silence of ten years succeeded the 1832 volume, broken 
only by an occasional contribution of a short poem to some 
magazine or collection. In 1842 appeared Poems by Alfred 
Tennyso7i, in two volumes, containing selections from the 
volumes of 1830 and 1832, and many new poems, among which 
were Vlysses, Love and Duty, The Talking Oak, Godiva, and 
the remarkable poems of 2' he Two Voices, and The Vision of 



BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 5 

/Si7i. The volumes were most enthusiastically received, and 
Tennyson took at once his place as England's great poet. A 
second edition followed in 1843, a third in 1845, a fourth in 1846, 
and a fifth in 1848. Then came The Princess : A Medley, 1847 ; 
a second edition, 1848 ; In MeTnoriam, 1850, three editions ap' 
pearing in the same year. 

The poet was married June 13, 1850, to Emily, daughter of 
Henry Sell wood, Esq., and niece of Sir John Franklin, of 
Arctic Expedition fame. Wordsworth had died April 23 of that 
year, and the laureateship was vacant. After some opposition, 
the chief coming from The Athenceicni, which advocated the 
claims of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Tennyson received the 
appointment, his In Memoriam, which had appeared a short 
time before, and which at once laid hold of so many hearts, 
contributing much, no doubt, to the final decision. His presen- 
tation to the queen took place at Buckingham Palace, March 6, 
1851, and in the same month appeared the seventh edition of 
the Poems, with an introductory poem To the Queen, in which 
he pays a high tribute to his predecessor in the laureateship : — 
* Victoria, since your royal grace 

To one of less desert allows 

This laurel greener from the brows 
Of him that uttered nothing base ;' 

To do much more than note the titles of his principal works 
since he became Poet-Laureate, the prescribed limit of this 
sketch will not allow. In 1855 appeared Maud, which, though 
it met with great disapprobation and but stinted j)raise, is, per- 
haps, one of his greatest poems. In July, 1859, the first of the 
Idyls of the King appeared, namely, Enid, Vivien, Elaine, and 
Guinevere, which were at once great favorites with all readers 
of the poet ; in August, 1864, Enoch Ardeti, with which were 
published ^^/Zmer's Field, Sea Dreams, The Grandnnother , and 
The Northern Farmer: in December, 1869, four additional 
Idyls, under the title. The Holy Grail and Other Poems, 
namely — The Comiyig of Arthur, The Holy Grail, Pelleas and 
Ettare, and The Passing of Arthur, of which forty thousand 
copies were ordered in advance ; in December, 1871, in The 
Contem.po7'ary Bevieiv, The Last Tournament ; in 1872, Gareth 
and Lynette; in 1875, Queen Mary : A Drama; in 1877, Harold: 
Drama; in 1880, Ballads and Other Poems. 

Tennyson's Muse has been productive of a body of lyric, 
idyllic, metaphysical, and narrative or descriptive poetry, the 



6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 

choicest, rarest, daintiest, and of the most exquisite workman- 
ship of any that the century lias to sliow. In a strictly dramatic 
direction he can hardly be said to have been successful. His 
Queen Mary is but little short of a failure as a drama, and his 
Harold but a partial success. With action proper he has shown 
but little sympathy, and in the domain of A'icarious thinking 
and feeling, in which Robert Browning is so pre-eminent, but 
little ability. But no one who is well acquainted with all the 
best poetry of the nineteenth century, will hesitate to j^ro- 
nounce him facile jn'incejJS in the domain of the lyric and 
idyllic ; and in these departments of poetrj he has developed 
a style at once individual and, in an artistic point of view, 
almost ' faultily faultless ' — a style which may be traced from 
his earliest efforts up to the most complete perfection of his 
latest poetical works. 

The splendid j^oetry he has given to the world has been the 
product of the most patient elaboration. No English poet, with 
the exception of Milton, Wordsw^orth, and the Brownings, ever 
worked with a deej)er sense of the divine mission of poetry 
than Tennyson has worked. And he has worked faithfully, 
earnestly, and conscientiously to realize the ideal with which 
he appears to have been early j^ossessed. To this ideal he gave 
expression in two of his early poems, entitled The Poet and 
The Poefs Mind; and in another of his early poems. The Lady 
of iShalott, is mj^stically shadowed forth the relations which 
poetic genius should sustain to the world for whose spiritual 
redemption it labors, and the fatal consequences of its being 
seduced by the world's temptations — the lust of the flesh, and 
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. 

Great thinkers and writers owe their power among men, not 
necessarily so much to a wide range of ideas, or to the origi- 
nality of their ideas, as to the intense vitality which they are 
able to impart to some one comprehensive, fructifying idea, 
with which, through constitution and the circumstances of 
their times, they have become possessed. It is only when a 
man is really possessed with an idea (that is, if it does not run 
away with him) that he can express it with a quickening 
power, and ring all j^ossible changes upon it. 

What may be said to be the dominant idea, and the most 
vitalized, in the poetry of Alfred Tennyson? It is easily 
noted. It glints forth everywhere in his poetry. It is, that the 
complete man must be a well-poised duality of the active and 



BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 7 

the passive or receptive ; must unite with an ' all-subtilizing 
intellect,' an 'all-comprehensive tenderness;' must 'gain in 
sweetness and in moral height, nor lose the wrestling thews 
that throw the world.' " 

Thus far Dr. Corson, of Cornell University, in his Introduc- 
tion to The Tivo Voices, and A Dream of Fair Women, poems 
edited by him for the English Classics. 



"It seems to nie that the only just estimate of Tennyson's position 
is that which declares him to be by eminence, the representative poet 
of the recent era. Not, like one or another of his compeers, represen- 
tative of the melody, wisdom, passion, or other partial phase of the 
era, but of tlie time itself, with its diverse elements in harmonious 
conjunction. ********* 

In his verse he is as truly ' tlie glass of fashion and the mould of form ' 
of tlie Victorian generation in the nineteenth centurj- as Spenser was 
of the Elizabethan court, Milton of the Protectorate, Pope of the reign 
of Queen Anne. During his supremacy there have been few great 
leaders at the head of different schools, sucli as belonged to the time 
of Bj^ron, Wordsworth, and Keats. His poetry has gathered all the 
elements which find vital expression in tlie complex modern art.' — 
Stednian's Victorian Poets. 



" To describe his command of language by any ordinary terms expres- 
sive of fluency or force would be to convey an idea both inadequate and 
erroneous. It is not only that he knows every word in the language 
suited to express his every idea; ho can select with the ease of magic 
the word that above all others is best for his purpose ; nor is it that he 
can at once summon to his aid the best word the language affords ; 
with an art whicli Slialiespeare never scrupled to apply, thougli in our 
day it is apt to be counted mere Germanism, and pronounced contrary 
to the genius of the language, he combines old words into new epithets, 
he daringly mingles all colors to bring out tints that never were on sea 
or shore. His words gleam like pearls and opals, like rubies and emer- 
alds. He yokes the stern vocables of the English tongue to the chariot 
of his imagination, and they become gracefully brilliant as the leopards 
of Bacchus, soft and glowing as the Cytherean doves. He must have 
been born witli an ear for verbal sounds, an instinctive appreciation 
of the beautiful and delicate in words, hardly ever equaled. Though 
his later worlis speak less of the blossom-time— show less of the etflor- 
escence and iridescence, and mere glance and gleam of colored words 
—they display no falling off, but rather an advance, in the mightier 
elements of rythmic speech."— Pe^er Bayne. 



Idyls of The King. 



The Idyls of the King is a group of iiiagnificent poems 
— ten in number — dealing with the character and reign of King 
Arthur, and describing the exploits of the Rights of the Round 
Table, when these knights were at the height of their glory, 
and when they had fallen to the depths of their shame. These 
poems picture, also, the life of Queen Guinevere at the Court 
and in the Abbey, her death, and that of her lord. They were 
dedicated by their author to the memory of Prince Albert, 
and afterwards to Queen Victoria. Having to do exclusively 
with the Arthvirian legends, which have come down to us in 
numberless books of prose and of poetry, these poems belong, 
in their subject-matter, to the past. But the legends have 
filtered tlu-ough the poet's nature, been etherealized by his 
imagination, and moulded by his artistic hands into such 
felicitous forms that this great work is, and will forever re- 
main, fascinating to all lovers of the beautiful in thought and 
expression. Tennyson himself says of it that it is 

New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul 
Ratlier than that gray liing, whose name, a ghost, 
Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak. 

The great hero of the Idyls, though not always the most 
active, never contending in the tournaments, is 

King Arthur. Of him, as a veritable and historical personage, 
nothing can be said. But he is the idealized and idolized hero 
of British and Welsh legend; is even the Magnificence of 
Spenser's Fcerie Queene (see Spenser's dedication of the i^oem 
to Sir Walter Raleigh, and also the opening stanzas of Canto IX., 
Book I). He is as real, or, if you please, as mythical, a 
character as William Tell. He is the reputed son of a reputed 
king, Uther— Pendragon (dragon-head), a surname, Ritson 
says, taken possibly from the form of his helmet or his crest. 
From him Arthur inherits the title. Arthur grew up ignorant 

8 



IDYLS OF THE KING. 9 

of his high birth, was taken to London, and, there drawing 
from a stone, in which it was imbedded, a sword on which was 
inscribed, *' Whoso pulleth this sword out of this stone is 
rightwise born King of England," was crowned King of 
Britain. His fabulous exploits in arms, as recorded by the 
Welshman Geoffrey of Monmouth, about 1138, and in a multi- 
tude of poems afterwards, put to shame the achievements of 
Alexander or of Csesar. His great enemy, near at home, was 
the Saxons, after their invasion of the Island in 449. With 
them he is said to have fought twelve battles (of which Lance- 
lot sjpeaks in Elaine), in all of which he was conqueror. The 
battle-fields have been placed in half the shires of England, 
and in Wales, and their location is as certain, probably, as the 
battles themselves, or even as the existence of their victor ! 
Where were 

Arthur's Palaces is equally uncertain. Cserleon-upon-TJsk, 
the Isca Silurum of the Romans, is said to have been his chief 
city. But places claiming the honor of his residence are found 
scattered throughout the Island. 

For an epitome of the facts concerning a real, historic Arthur, 
the basis, perhaps, of the mythical Arthur of the Romances, 
see '^Arthur," EncyclopcEdia Britannica. 

The Round Table was the famous circle of knights gathered 
around Arthur as their head. Who these knights were and 
what they Avere to do may as well be told in Tennyson's own 
lines, put into the mouth of Arthur, in Guinevere : 

But I was first of all the kings who drew 

The knighthood-errant of this realm, and all 

The realms, together under me, their Head, 

In that fair order of my Table Round, 

A glorious company, the flower of men, 

To serve as model for the mighty world, 

And be the fair beginning of a time. 

I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 

To reverence the King, as if he were 

Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 

To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 

To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 

To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 

To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 

To love one maiden only, cleave to her, 

And worship her by years of noble deeds 

Until they won her ; for, indeed, I knew 



10 iBYLS OF THE KING. 

Of no more subtle master under heaven 
Than is the maiden passion for a maid, 
Not only to keep down the base in man 
But teach high thought and amiable words 
And courtliness and the desire of fame 
And love of truth and all that makes a man. 

How this circle had declined in virtue the Idyls show. But 
one is grateful to Tennyson that, in the exquisite poems em- 
braced under this title, these knights are lifted out of the 
grossness of their sins, in which Sir Thomas Mallory makes 
them wallow, in his History of King Arthur. Of this group 

Lancelot was chief, at least in prowess, and the favorite of 
Arthur. He is especially prominent in Elaine; sinning in his 
love for Queen Guinevere, and yet repenting, and dying, at 
last, "a holy man." He is represented as born in Brittany. 
On the death of his father, he was carried away, then an infant, 
by Vivien, the lady of the lake, who fostered him ; hence he 
was called Lancelot du Lac. His birth and possessions in 
Britany explain his offer to Elaine "of lands beyond the seas." 

In his Fic^oriaw Poeis, Stedman says : * * ' " AVe 

come at last to Tennyson's master-work, so recently brought 
to a completion after twenty years— during which period the 
separate Idyls of the King had appeared from time to time. 
Nave and transept, aisle after aisle, the Gothic minster has ex- 
tended, until, Avith the addition of a cloister here and a chapel 
yonder, the structure stands complete. 

I hardly think that the poet at first expected to*compose an 
epic. It has grown insensibly under the hands of one man who 
has given it the best years of his life,— but someAvhat as Wolf 
conceived the Homeric poems to have groMm, chant by chant, 
until the time came for the whole to be welded together in 
heroic form. 

It is the epic of chivalry, the Christian ideal of chivalry which 
we have deduced from a barbaric source,— our conception of 
what knighthood should be, rather than what it really was; 
but so skillfully Avrought of high imaginings, fairy spells, fan- 
tastic legends, and mediaeval splendors, that the whole work, 
suffused with the Tennysonian glamour of golden mist, seems 
like a chronicle illuminated by saintly hands, and often blazes 
with light like that which flashed from the holy wizard-book 
when the covers Avere unclasped." 



ELAINE* 



THE ARGUMENT. — On his way to Camelot to joust, incognito, for 
the last and greatest of the nine diamonds offered as prizes by King 
Arthur, Lancelot spends the night at Astolat, the castle of Elaine's 
father. Here, unwittingly, he wins Elaine's love. At the joust 
whither he is accompanied by Lavaine, Lancelot, wearing her 
sleeve of pearls on his helmet, is sorely wounded. Elaine learns of this, 
and, with her father's consent, goes to him, and nurses him through 
his serious illness. Recovering, he returns with her and her brother 
to Astolat for his shield, left with her that he might not be recognized 
by it. Here she confesses to him her love. Unable to give his own in 
return, he tenderly, yet without farewell, departs. Elaine sickens and 
dies ; but not till her father has promised her that, with the letter 
she has written to Lancelot and the Queen in her dead hand, she 
shall be dressed in her richest white, placed on the deck of the barge 
and rowed up the river to the palace. This is done ; and the majestic 
poem concludes with the appearance of her body at Court and the 
burial, with a painful interview between the King and Lancelot, and 
with Lancelot's sad reflections. 

Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, 

Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, 

High in her chamber up a tower to the east 

Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot ; 

Which first she placed where morning's earliest ray 

Might strike it, and aw^ake her with the gleam ; 

Then, fearing rust or soilure, fashion' d for it 

A case of silk, and braided thereupon 

All the devices blazon 'd on the shield 



* "Maine still remains, for pathetic sweetness and absolute beauty 
of narrative and rhythm, dearest to the heart of maiden, youth, or 
sage."— Stedman's Yiciorian Poets. 

2. Lily maid, so named from the delicate hue of her face. Called, in 
some of the romances, Elaine la Blanche, the White. 

4. Sacred in her eyes. 

7. Soilure, soil, stain, dirt— an old word. 

9. Blazon'd, applied in heraldry to the figures portrayed on the shield 
or other armor. Fr. bldson, a coat of arms. 

11 



12 ELAIIN^E. 

In their own tinct, and added, of her wit, lo 

A border fantasy of branch and flower. 

And yellow-throated nestling in the nest. 

Nor rested thus content, but day by day. 

Leaving her household and good father, clinib'd 

That eastern tower, and, entering, barr'd her door, 15 

Stript off the case, and read the naked shield 

Now guess 'd a hidden meaning in his arms. 

Now made a pretty history- to herself 

Of every dint a sword had beaten in it. 

And every scratch a lance had made upon it, 20 

Conjecturing when and where : this cut is fresh ; 

That ten years back ; this dealt him at Caerlyle ; 

That at Cserleon ; this at Camelot : 

And ah, God's mercy, what a stroke was there ! 

And here a thrust that might have kill'd, but God 25 

Broke the strong lance, and roll'd his enemy down, 

And saved him : so she lived in fantasy. 

How came the lily maid by that good shield 
Of Lancelot, she that knew not ev'n his name? 
He left it with her when he rode to tilt 30 

For the great diamond in the diamond jousts 
Which Arthur had ordain' d, and by that name 
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize. 

For Arthur, long before they crown' d him king, 
Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse, 35 

12. Nestling. Elaine embroidered on the case all the figures of the 
shield and in the same tinct (tint, colorj, and added fancy pictures of 
branch and flower and birds, yestUng from nest, root nas, to go 
to, visit, and tlie double diminutive suffix l-ing. Cf. gosIinrf=goose-l-ing. 

19. Dint, same as dent, a blow, the impression made by the blow. 
Here and ordinarily both dint and dent are metonymies, the name of 
the effect standing for that of the cause. 

22-23. Bee Introduction for these traditional places. 

27. Him, Lancelot. Poets, even, are ambiguous in their use of per- 
sonal pronouns. 

31. Diamond, same word as adamant. From two Gr. words, a, not, 
and damaein, to subdue. The thing named from its hardness; 
nothing, it was supposed, could wear it away, or subdue it. Tame 
same word as damaein, and illustrates Grimm's Law. Jousts, encoun- 
ters on horseback— fviUy described in the poem. 

35. Lyonnesse, a district of Cornwall, said now to be buried under 
the sea. 



ELAINE. 13 

Had found a glen, gray boulder, and black tarn. 

A horror lived about the tarn, and clave 

Like its own mists to all the mountain side : 

For here two brothers, one a king, had met, 

And fought together ; but their names were lost. 40 

And each had slain his brother at a blow. 

And down they fell and made the glen abhorr'd : 

And there they lay till all their bones were bleach'd, 

And lichen 'd into color with the crags : 

And he that once was king had on a crown 45 

Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside. 

And Arthur came, and laboring up the pass 

All in a misty moonshine, unawares 

Had trodden that crown'd skeleton, and the skull 

Brake from the nape, and from the skull the crown 50 

Roll'd into light, and, turning on its rims. 

Fled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn : 

And down the shingly scaur he plunged, and caught. 

And set it on his head, and in his heart 

Heard murmurs, " Lo, thou likewise shalt be king." 55 

Thereafter, when a king, he had the gems 
Pluck'd from the crown, andshow'dthemto his knights. 
Saying, " These jewels, whereupon I chanced 
Divinely, are the kingdom's, not the king's — 
For public use : henceforward let there be, 60 

Once every year, a joust for one of these : 
For so by nine years' i^roof we needs naust learn 
Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall grow 
In use of arms and manhood, till we drive 

36. Tarn, a pool. A Norse word, as is also boulder. A boulder is a 
detached rock. The noise it makes in thundering to the plains below 
gives it its name, which is related, as is bull, to belloic. 

41. Lichen'd, a participle Irom no verb. Lichen is the name of a 
flowerless, parasitic plant, fastening upon stones, rails, and, here, upon 
bones. 

46. Aside, on each side, 

53. Shingly scaur, both Norse words, meaning here the steep, rocky 
banks of the tarn, covered with a coarse gravel. Shingle allied to 
sing—i\\Q thing so named from the noise the foot makes in treading 
upon it. 

62. Needs, necessarily, from noun need with an A.-S. genitive ending 
s or es. 



14 ELAINE. 

The heathen, who, some say, shall rule the land 65 

Hereafter, which God hinder. ' ' Thus he spoke : 

And eight years past, eight jousts had been, and still 

Had Lancelot won the diamond of the year, 

With purpose to present them to the Queen 

When all were won ; but, meaning all at once 70 

To snare her royal fancy with a boon 

Worth half her realm, had never spoken word. 

Now for the central diamond and the last 
And largest, Arthur, holding then his court 
Hard on the river nigh the place which now 75 

Is this world's hugest, let proclaim a joust 
At Camelot, and when the time drew nigh 
Spake (for she had been sick) to Guinevere, 
"Are you so sick, my Queen, you can not move 79 

Tothese fair j ousts ? " "Yea, lord," she said, "ye know it." 
" Then will ye miss," he answer'd, " the great deeds 
Of Lancelot, and his prowess in the lists, 
A sight je love to look on." And the Queen 
Lifted her eyes, and they dwelt languidly 
On Lancelot, where he stood beside the King. 85 

He, thinking that he read her meaning there, 
" Stay with me, I am sick ; my love is more 
Than many diamonds," yielded ; and a heart, 
Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen 
(However much he yearn 'd to make complete 90 

The tale of diamonds for his destined boon), 
Urged him to speak against the truth, and say, 

65. Heathen, the Anglo-Saxons, with whom Arthur was so long war- 
ring. How did the present meaning of pagan and heathen come from 
the old? Hee Wehster. 

67. Still, as in Shakespeare, always, constantly. 

76. World's hugest, London, and the river, Thames. Let proclaim, 
caused to be proclaimed. 

80. Lord. The etymology of lord and lady are worth knowing, if only 
to see how the words have strayed from their original meanings. 
Lord from A.-S. hh\f, loaf, and tueard, keeper, and hence = loaf-keeper. 
Lady from hMf, and dcegre and = loaf-kneader. 

91. Tale, number. Cf. Exodus v. 18. "There shall no straw be given 
you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks." Skeat says, "The 
original sense was probably order, whence number, orderly arrange- 
ment of speech, narrative. ' Boon, original meaning is a petition— now 
means a gift, as well. 



ELAINE. 15 

" Sir King, mine ancient wound is hardly whole, 
And lets me from the saddle ;" and the King 
Glanced first at him, then her, and went his way. 95 
No sooner gone than suddenly she began : 

" To blame, my lord Sir Lancelot, much to blame ! 
Why go ye not to these fair jousts? the knights 
Are half of them our enemies, and the crowd 
Will nmrmur, ' Lo, the shameless ones, who take ico 
Their pastime now the trustful king is gone ! ' " 
Then Lancelot, vexed at having lied in vain : 
" Are ye so wise ? ye were not once so wise. 
My Queen, that summer, when ye loved me first. 
Then of the crowd ye took no more account 105 

Than of the myriad cricket of the mead, 
When its own voice clings to each blade of grass, 
And every voice is nothing. As to knights. 
Them surely can I silence w ith all ease. 
But now my loyal worship is allow 'd no 

Of all men : many a bard, without offence, 
Has link'd our names together in his lay, 
Lancelot, the flower of bravery, Guinevere, 
The pearl of beauty : and our knights at feast 
Have pledged us in this union, while the king 115 

Would listen smiling. How then ? is there more ? 
Has Arthur spoken aught ? or would yourself, 
Now weary of my service and devoir, 

93. Sir, or sire, from L. senior, elder. The title of a knight, but often 
used in addressing a king. Whole, healed. Whole, wholesome, heal, 
7iail, health, holi/, are related words, meaning soundness of body or of 
mind. The initial to comparatively recent. 

94. Lets, hinders. Two let's in English: lei,to hinder, from A. -f<. I ctt an, 
to make late; and let, to permit, allow, from A.-S. Icetan, letan. Saddle, 
from a root meaning to sit. 

106. Cricket, the name of an insect that creaks, an imitative word, 
here a collective noun. Meadow is but a fuller form of mead. 

108. Nothing, because indistinguishable from other voices. 

111. Bard, a Celtic word = A.-S. gleeman = F. minstrel. The education 
of the minstrel poets consisted chiefly of the lays (lyric poems) com- 
mitted to memory, or composed by himself to the music of his lyre. 
These he sang in the halls of the great, at their feasts. Sometimes 
the bard was a retainer of the chief whom he served; sometimes a 
wanderer, visiting the courts of princes, and never failing of welcome 
and of substantial reward. 

118. Devoir, duty ; L. debere, to owe. 



16 ELAINE. 

Henceforth be truer to your faultless lord?" 

She broke into a little scornful laugh. 120 

'* Arthur, my lord, Arthur, the faultless King, 
That passionate perfection, my good lord — 
But who can gaze upon the sun in heaven ? 
He never spake word of reproach to me, 
He never had a glimpse of mine untruth, 125 

He cares not for me : only here to-day 
There gleam'd a vague suspicion in his eyes : 
Some meddling rogue has tamper' d with him — else 
Rapt in this fancy of his Table Round, 
And swearing men to vows impossible, 130 

To make them like himself : but, friend, to me 
He is all fault who hath no fault at all : 
For who loves me must have a touch of earth ; 
The low sun makes the color : I am yours, 
Not Arthur's, as ye know, save by the bond. 135 

And therefore hear my words : go to the jousts : 
The tiny-trumpeting gnat can break our dream 
When sweetest ; and the vermin voices here 
May buzz so loud — we scorn them, but they sting." 

Then answer' d Lancelot, the chief of knights : 140 
"And with what face, after my pretext made. 
Shall I appear, O Queen, at Camelot, I 
Before a King who honors his own word. 
As if it were his God's? " 



128. Else rapt, except in this instance, always engrossed, absorbed. 
Table Round, see Introduction. 

180. Vows impossible. No wonder those vows of noble living (see In- 
troduction, " Round Table,") with which Arthur bound his knights, 
were now impossible under a queen with a nature so earthy, and a 
heart so disloyal to her husband, as to permit her to utter the next five 
lines. 

134. The low sun makes the color, the morning and evening sun 
paints the clouds, and colors even the air. Read Tyndall's essays on 
light, and learn how. Note the aptness to her condition of this in- 
complete comparison. 

135. Save by the bond of marriage. 

137. Gnat, mosquito, whose tiny-trumpeting is the buzzing of his 
wings. 
141. Pretext, excuse for staying with the queen. 



ELAINE. 17 

" Yea," said the QueeM, 145 
"A moral child without the craft to rule, 
Else had he not lost me : but listen to me. 
If I must find you wit : we hear it said 
That men go down before your spear at a touch 
But knowing you are Lancelot ; your great name, 150 
This conquers : hide it, therefore ; go unknown : 
Win ! by this kiss you will : and our true King 
Will then allow your pretext, O my knight, 
As all for glory ; for, to speak him true. 
Ye know right well, how meek soe'er he seem, 155 

No keener hunter after glory breathes. 
He loves it in his knights more than himself : 
They prove to him his w^ork : win and return." 

Then got Sir Lancelot suddenly to horse, 
Wroth at himself: not willing to be known, 160 

He left the barren-beaten thoroughfare, 
Chose the green path that show'd the rarer foot. 
And there among the solitary downs. 
Full often lost in fancy, lost his way ; 
Till, as he traced a faintly-shadow'd track, 165 

That all in loops and links among the dales 
Ran to the Castle of Astolat, he saw 
Fired from the west, far on a hill, the towers. 
Thither lie made, and wound the gateway horn. 
Then came an old, dumb, myriad-wrinkled man, 170 
Who let him into lodging, and disarm'd. 
And Lancelot marvePd at the wordless man ; 
And, issuing, found the Lord of Astolat 



146. Craft, skill. She is trying to shift her guilt to the shoulders of 
her husband. 
148. Wit, reason. 
150. But knowing, by simply knowing. 

161. Thorough-fare. The old form oi thorough was throuyh. Fare from 
A.-S. faran, to go— the whole = tlie way througli. 

162. Green, grass growing in it because it was rarely trodden. 

163. Downs, a Celtic word meaning hills. The cognate A.-S. word is 
tun, now, toivn. 

168. Fired, lighted up by the western sun. 

169. Horn, placed so that one seeking admission could announce hi.s 
presence. 



18 ELAINE. 

With two strong sons, Sir Torre and Sir Lavaine, 

Moving to meet him in the castle court ; 175 

And close behind them stept the lily maid, 

Elaine, his daughter : mother of the house 

There was not : some light jest among them rose 

With laughter dying down as the great knight 

Approach 'd them : then the Lord of Astolat : iSo 

"Whence comest thou, my guest, and by what name 

Livest between the lips ? for, by thy state 

And presence, I might guess thee chief of those. 

After the King, who eat in Arthur's halls. 

Him have I seen : the rest, his Table Round, 185 

Known as they are, to me they are unknown." 

Then answer' d Lancelot, the chief of knights : 
" Known am I, and of Arthur's hall, and known 
What I by mere mischance have brought, my shield. 
But, since I go to joust, as one unknown, 190 

At Camelot for the diamond, ask me not. 
Hereafter you shall know me — and the shield — 
I pray you lend me one, if such you have. 
Blank, or at least with some device not mine." 

Then said the Lord of Astolat, " Here is Torre's : 195 
Hurt in his first tilt was my son. Sir Torre, 
And so, God wot, his shield is blank enough. 
His ye can have." Then added plain Sir Torre, 
"Yea, since I cannot use it, ye may have it." 
Here laugh' d the father saying, " Fie, Sir Churl, 200 
Is that an answer for a noble knight ? 
Allow him : but Lavaine, my younger here. 
He is so full of lustihood, he will ride. 
Joust for it, and win, and bring it in an hour. 



182. Livest, etc., art called by. 

194. Blank, without device or blazon. 

200. Sir Churl, a reproach to Sir Torre for his ungracious speech— that, 
since he could not use the shield, Lancelot might. 

208. Lustihood, etc., so full of vigor that he would like to ride. We 
keep the good meaning of the word in lusty, the bad in lust. 

204. It, the diamond. 



ELAINE. 19 

And set it in this damsel's golden hair, 205 

To make her thrice as wilful as before." 

" Nay, father, nay, good father, shame me not 
Before this noble knight," said young Lavaine, 
' ' For nothing. Surely I but play'd on Torre : 
He seem'd so sullen, vext he could not go : 210 

A jest, no more : for, knight, the maiden dreamt 
That some one put this diamond in her hand. 
And that it was too slippery to be held, 
And slipt, and fell into some pool or stream, 
The castle-well, belike ; and then I said 215 

That if I went, and if I fought and won it 
(But all was jest and joke among ourselves). 
Then must she keep it safelier. All was jest. 
But, father, give me leave, an if he will. 
To ride to Camelot with this noble knight : 220 

Win shall I not, but do my best to win : 
Young as I am, yet would I do my best." 

" So ye Avill grace me," answer' d Lancelot, 
Smiling a moment, "with your fellowship 
O'er these waste downs whereon I lost myself, 225 

Then were I glad of you as guide and friend ; 
And you shall win this diamond — as I hear. 
It is a fair large diamond,— if ye may ; 
And yield it to this maiden, if ye will." 
" A fair, large diamond," added plain Sir Torre, 230 

" Such be for queens and not for simple maids." 
Then she, who held her eyes upon the ground, 
Elaine, and heard her name so tost about, 
Flush' d slightly at the slight disparagement 
Before the stranger knight, who, looking at her 235 

Full courtly, yet not falsely, thus return'd : 
" If what is fair be but for what is fair, 
And only queens are to be counted so, 



210 An, if. An old word for and, but used in the sense of if, and fre- 
quent in 81iakespeare. Wlieu tliis force of an vvas forgotten, people 
placed an // after it, as here. 



20 ELAINE. 

Rash were my judgment, then, who deem this maid 
Might wear as fair a jewel as is on eartli, 240 

Not violating the bond of like to like." 

He spoke and ceased : the lily maid Elaine, 
Won by the mellow voice before she look'd, 
Lifted her eyes, and read his lineaments. 
The great and guilty love he bare the Queen, 245 

In battle with the love he bare his lord. 
Had marr'd his face, and mark'd it ere his time. 
Another sinning on such heights with one. 
The flower of all the west and all the world. 
Had been the sleeker for it : but in him 450 

His mood was often like a fiend, and rose 
And drove him into wastes and solitudes 
For agony, who was yet a living soul. 
Marr'd as he was, he seem'd the goodliest man 
That ever among ladies ate in hall, 255 

And noblest, when she lifted up her eyes. 
However marr'd, of more than twice her years, 
Seam'd with an ancient swordcut on the cheek, 
And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes 
And loved him, with that love which was her doom. 260 

Then the great knight, the darling of the court. 
Loved of the loveliest, into that rude hall 
Stept with all grace, and not with half-disdain 
Hid under grace, as in a smaller time, 
But kindly man moving among his kind : 265 

Whom they with meats and vintage of their best, 
And talk and minstrel melody entertain'd. 
And much they ask'd of court and Table Round, 
And ever well and readily answer' d he : 
But Lancelot, when they glanced at Guinevere, 270 

Suddenly speaking of the wordless man 

241. Not violating, because Elaine "was so fair. 

253 Who was yet, etc. Lancelot is not a hardened sinner. His better 
nature is here in revolt against the rule of his lower nature. 

260. Doom, primarily judgment; then judgment adverse to one, and 
then, as here, the consequence— destruction, death. 

264. Smaller time, when he was youugei". 

267, Minstrel melody, see 1. 111. 



ELAINE. 21 

Heard from, the baron that, ten years before, 

The heathen caught, and reft him of his tongue. 

" He learnt and warn'd me of their fierce design 

Against my house, and him they caught and maim'd ; 275 

But I, my sons, and Uttle daughter fled 

From bonds or death, and dwelt among the woods 

By the great river in a boatman's hut. 

Dull days were those, till our good Arthur broke 

The Pagan yet once more on Badon hill. 280 

" Oh, there, great Lord, doubtless," Lavaine said, rapt 
By all the sweet and sudden passion of youth 
Toward greatness in its elder, * ' you have fought. 
Oh, tell us — for we live apart — you know 
Of Arthur's glorious wars." And Lancelot spoke 285 
And answer' d him at full, as having been 
With Arthur in the fight which all day long 
Rang by the white mouth of the violent Glem ; 
And in the four wild battles by the shore 
Of Duglas ; that on Bassa ; then the war 290 

That thunder' d in and out the gloomy skirts 
Of Celidon the forest ; and again 
By castle Gurnion, where the glorious King 
Had on his cuirass worn our Lady's Head, 
Carved on one emerald, center' d in a sun 295 

Of silver rays, that lighten' d as he breathed ; 
And at Cserleon had he help'd his lord, 
When the strong neighings of the wild White Horse 
Set every gilded parapet shuddering ; 
And up in Agned-Cathregonion too, 300 

And down the waste sand-shores of Trath Treroit, 



280. Badon hill. See Introduction, for these battle fields. 

281. Rapt, caught up, fascinated. L. 7-apere, to seize. 

294. Lady's Head, the head of the Virgin Mary. Cuirass, from Fr. 
cidr, L. corium, leather— the material out of which the breast-plate was 
made. 

295. Center'd, the emerald was in the center of a pictured sun. 

296. Lighten'd, etc., gleamed as the rise and fall of his breast in 
breathing changed the emerald's position. 

298. "White Horse. The White Horse was the standard, or national 
emblem of the Danish chief. In Berkshire is the famous White Horse 
Hill. Twice in Guinevere the heathen are called "Lords of the 
White Horse." 



22 ELAINE. 

Where many a heathen fell ; " And on the mount 

Of Badon I myself beheld the King 

Charge at the head of all his Table Round, 

And all his legions crying Christ and him, 305 

And break them ; and I saw him, after, stand 

High on a heap of slain, from spur to plume 

Red as the rising sun with heathen blood. 

And, seeing me, with a great voice he cried, 

' They are broken, they are broken, ' for the King, 310 

However mild he seems at home, nor cares 

For triumph in our mimic wars, the jousts — 

For, if his own knight cast him down, he laughs. 

Saying his knights are better men than he — 

Yet in this heathen war the flre of God 315 

Fills him : I never saw his like : there lives 

No greater leader. ' ' 

While he utter' d this, 
Low to her own heart said the lily maid, 
'' Save your great self, fair lord ;" and, when he fell 320 
From talk of war to traits of pleasantry — , 

Being mirthful he but in a stately' kind, — 
She still took note that when the living smile 
Died from his lips, across him came a cloud 
Of melancholy severe, from which again, 325 

Whenever, in her hovering to and fro. 
The lily maid had striven to make him cheer, 
There brake a sudden-beaming tenderness 
Of manners and of nature : and she thought 
That all was nature, all, perchance, for her. 330 

And all that night long his face before her lived. 
As when a i^ainter, jDoring on a face. 
Divinely thro' all hindrance finds the man 
Behind it, and so paints him that his face, 

306. Break them, put the heathen to flight. 

310. For the King is here pleonastic, has no connection with what 
follows. 

327. To make him cheer, to entertain him. Cheer, F. chere,L. cara, face, 
look. Be of good cheer = be of happy countenance, look pleased. 

331. Lived, appearing in her dreams', and recalled in her waking hours. 



ELAINE. 23 

The shape and color of a mind and life, 335 

Lives for his children, ever at its best 

And fullest ; so the face before her lived. 

Dark-splendid, speaking in the silence, full 

Of noble things, and held her from her sleep. 

Till rathe she rose, half-cheated in the thought 340 

She needs must bid farewell to sweet Lavaine. 

First as in fear, step after step, she stole 

Down the long tower-stairs, hesitating : 

Anon, she heard Sir Lancelot cry in the court, 

* ' This shield, my friend, where is it ? " and Lavaine 345 

Past inward, as she came from out the tower. 

There to his proud horse Lancelot turn'd, andsmooth'd 

The glossy shoulder, humming to himself. 

Half-envious of the flattering hand, she drew 

Nearer and stood. He look'd, and more amazed 350 

Then if seven men had set upon him, saw 

The maiden standing in the dewy light. 

He had not dreamed she was so beautiful. 

Then came on him a sort of sacred fear. 

For silent, tho' he greeted her, she stood 355 

Rapt on his face as if it were a God's. 

Suddenly flash' d on her a wild desire 

That he should wear her favor at the tilt. 

She braved a riotous heart in asking for it. 

''Fair lord, w^hose name I know not — noble it is, 360 

I well believe, the noblest — will you wear 

My favor at this tourney ? " " Nay, ' ' said he. 



340. Rathe, early. Our comparative rather {rathe and rathest have 
perished, and tlie initial h is lost) once expressed a pure time relation. 
Earle instances a threatening letter written, in 1420, by Hir Hugh Lut- 
trell, in which he says he "shall come home, and that rather [earlier] 
than some men wolde " wish to see him. Rather, expressing preference, 
even now really denotes time. I would rather go than stay = I would 
sooner go than stay = I would take the going sooner than I would take 
the staying. Half-cheated, half-deluding herself with, and half- 
deluded by, the thought that she wanted to bid Lavaine, and not 
Lancelot, farewell. A fine touch of nature in Tennyson. 

849. Flattering, an instance of Tennyson's delicate use of words. It is 
from a base /Za/c, meaning to stroke, to pet. 

351. Set upon him, in attack, in the tournament. 

352. Dewy light, the air yet charged with the moisture of the dew. 
358. Favor, something worn as a token of regard. What it indicated 

when worn by a knight is seen farther on in the poem. 



24 ELAINE. 

" Fair lady, since I never yet have worn 

Favor of any lady in the lists. 

Such is my wont, as those who know me know." 365 

" Yea, so," she answer' d ; "then in wearing mine 

Needs must be lesser likelihood, noble lord. 

That those who know should know you. ' ' And he turn' d 

Her counsel up and down within his mind, 

And found it true, and answer' d, " True, my child. 370 

Well, I will wear it : fetch it out to me : 

What is it?" and she told him, " A red sleeve 

Broider'd with pearls," and brought it : then he bound 

Her token on his helmet, with a smile 

Saying, ' ' I never yet have done so much 375 

For any maiden living," and the blood 

Sprang to her face and fill'd her with delight ; 

But left her all the j^aler, when Lavaine, 

Returning, brought the yet-unblazon'd shield, 

His brother's ; which he gave to Lancelot, 380 

Who parted with his own to fair Elaine ; 

"Do me this grace, my child, to have my shield 

In keeping till I come. " "A grace to me, ' ' 

She answer'd, " twice to-daj-. I am your Squire." 

Whereat Lavaine said, laughing, " Lily maid, 385 

For fear our people call you lily maid 

In earnest, let me bring your color back ; 

Once, twice, and thrice : now get you hence to bed : " 

So kiss'd her, and Sir Lancelot his hand. 

And thus they moved away ; she stay'd a minute, 390 

Then made a sudden step to the gate, and there — 

Her bright hair blown about the serious face 

Yet rosy-kindled with her brother's kiss — 

Paused in the gateway, standing by the shield 

In silence, while she watch' d their arms far-off 395 



365. V/ont, custom, habit ; A.-S. ivunicm to dwell, to continue in. 

367. Lesser likelihood, less probability— ?es«er, a double comparative, 
still used. A keen argument, as he acknowledges. He wished to fight 
unknown; and wearing a favor, contrary to his custom, would help to 
disguise him. 

;5!&. Squire, a young noble before he attained the dignity of knight- 
hood, here a shield-bearer. Knights were thus attended. 



ELAINE. 25 

Sparkle, until they dipt below the downs. 

Then to her tower she climb' d, and took the shield, 

There kept it, and so lived in fantasy. 

Meanwhile the two companions past away 

Far o'er the long backs of the bushless downs, 400 

To where Sir Lancelot knew there lived a knight 

Not far from Camelot, now for forty years 

A hermit, who had pray'd, labor'd, and pray'd. 

And, ever laboring, had scoop'd himself. 

In the white rock, a chapel and a hall 405 

On massive columns, like a shoreclifF cave, 

And cells and chambers : all were fair and dry ; 

The green light from the meadows underneath 

Struck u]) and lived along the milky roofs ; 

And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees 410 

And poplars made a noise of falling showers. 

And, thither wending, there that night they bode. 

But when the next day broke from underground, 

And shot red fire and shadow s thro' the cave, 

They rose, heard mass, broke fast, and rode away : 415 

Then Lancelot, saying, " Hear, but hold my name 

Hidden, you ride with Lancelot of the Lake," 

Abash' d Lavine, whose instant reverence. 

Dearer to true young hearts than their own praise. 

But left him leave to stammer, " Is it indeed? " 420 

And after muttering, "The great Lancelot," 

At last he got his breath and answer' d, "One, 

One have I seen — that other, our liege lord. 

The dread Pendragon, Britain's King of kings. 

Of whom the people talk mysteriously, 425 

399. Companions. The etymology of the word gives its best meaning 
— L. cion, together, and panis, bread— those eating bread together. 

411. Made a noise. The rustling leaves made the noise of showers. 

413. Broke from underground, sun rose above the horizon. 

415. Mass, from L. mis.m, mittere, in the command given by the priest 
to those who were not yet allowed to remain during the celebration of 
the Eucharist. He, missa est, Go, the congregation is dismissed. Then 
it came to name the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper, itself. Used as a ter- 
mination in Christmas, Candlemas, etc. 

424. Pendragon, see Introduction, " Arthur." 



26 ELAINE. 

He Avill be there — then, were I stricken Mind 
That minute, I miglit say that I had seen." 

So si^ake Lavaine, and, when they reaeh'd the lists 

By Canielot in the meadow, let his eyes 

Run thro' the peopled gallery, which half round 430 

Lay like a rainbow falPn upon the grass, 

Until they found the clear-faced I^ng, who sat 

Robed in red samite, easily to be known. 

Since to his crown the golden dragon clung. 

And down his robe the dragon writhed in gold, 435 

And from the carven-work behind him crept 

Two dragons gilded, sloping down to make 

Arms for his chair, while all the rest of them 

Thro' knots and loops and folds innumerable 

Fled ever thro' the w^oodwork, till they found 440 

The new design wherein they lost themselves. 

Yet with all ease, so tender was the work : 

And, in the costly canopy o'er him set. 

Blazed the last diamond of the nameless king. 

Then Lancelot answer' d j^oung Lavaine and said, 445 

" Me you call great : mine is the firmer seat. 

The truer lance : but there is many a youth. 

Now crescent, who will come to all I am 

And overcome it ; and in me there dwells 

No greatness, save it be some far-off touch 450 

Of greatness to know well I am not great : 

There is the man." And Lavaine gaped upon him 

As on a thing miraculous, and anon 

The trumpets blew ; and then did either side. 

They that assail' d, and they that held the lists, 455 

Set lance in rest, strike spur, suddenly move. 



428. Lists, the ground enclosed for the combats. 
433. Samite, a rich silk cloth. 

443. Canopy, from a Gr. word meaning a mosquito. Applied to the 
bed furnished with over-hangings to protect the sleeper against the in- 
sect; then to whatever overarched one, now even to the sky. 

444. Nameless Kmg, see 1. 3!». 

448. Crescent, growing. The good in Lancelot here shows itself. 

452. Gaped, looked open-mouthed. 

453. Anon, A.-lS. on an, in one, moment. 



ELAT^-E. 27 

Meet in the midst, and tliere so furiously 

Shock, tliat a man far-off might well perceive, 

If any man that day were left afield. 

The hard earth shake, and a low thunder of arms. 460 

And Lancelot bode a little, till he saw 

Which were the weaker ; then he hurPd into it 

Against the stronger : little need to speak 

Of Lancelot in his glory ! King, duke, earl, 

Count, baron — whom he smote ho overthrew. 465 

But in the field were Lancelot's kith and kin, 
Ranged' with the Table Round that held the lists,' 
Strong men, and wrathful that a stranger knight 
Should do and almost overdo the deeds 
Of Lancelot ; and one said to the other, " Lo ! 470 

What is he ? I do not mean the for<^e alone — 
The grace and versatility of the man. 
Is it hot Lancelot ? " " When has Lancelot worn 
Favor of any lady in the lists ? 

Not such his wont, as we, who know him, know." 475 
" How then ? who then ? " a fury seized all them 
A fiery family j)assion for the name 
Of Lancelot, and a glory one with theirs. 
They couch 'd their spears and prick' d their steeds and 
thus, 47g 

Their plumes driv'n backward by the wind they made 
In moving, all together down upon him 
Bare, as a wild wave in the wide North-sea, 
Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears, with all 
Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies, 
Down on a bark, and overbears the bark, 485 

And him that helms it, so they overbore 
Sir Lancelot and his charger, and a spear, 



458. Shock, came together, collided— an unusual meaning of the verb. 

4.59. This line is parenthetic. If there was any one left on horseback 
to perceive. The objects of perceive are in the next line. 

461. Bode, waited. 

484. Smoke, the tops of the waves are caught up by the wind and 
tossed about in spray. 

486, Helms, steers the bark, or boat. 



28 ELAINE. 

Down-glancing, lamed the charger, and a spear, 
Prick' d sharply his own cuirass, and the head 
Pierced thro' his side and there snapt and remain 'd. 490 

Then Sir Lavaine did well and worshipfully ; 
He bore a knight of old repute to the earth. 
And brought his horse to Lancelot where he lay. 
He up the side, sweating with agony, got, 
But thought to do while he might yet endure, 495 

And, being lustily holpen by the rest. 
His party, — tho' it seemed half-miracle 
To those he fought with — drave his kith and kin. 
And all the Table Round that held the lists, 
Back to the barrier ; then the trumpets blew 500 

Proclaiming his the prize who wore the sleeve 
Of scarlet, and the jiearls ; and all the knights. 
His party, cried, "Advance, and take thy prize, 
The diamond ; " but he answer'd, " Diamond me 
No diamonds ! for God's love, a little air ! 505 

Prize me no prizes, for my prize is death ! 
Hence will I, and, I charge you, follow me not." 

He spoke, and vanish'd suddenly from the field 
With young Lavaine into the poplar grove. 
There from his charger down he slid, and sat, 510 

Gasping to Sir Lavaine, "Draw the lance-head : " 
" Ah, my sweet lord Sir Lancelot," said Lavaine, 
" I dread me, if I draw it, ye shall die." 
But he, " I die already with it : draw — 
Draw," — and Lavaine drew, and that other gave 515 
A marvelous great shriek and ghastly groan, 
And half his blood burst forth, and down he sank 
For the pure pain, and wholly swoon 'd away. 
Then came the hermit out and bare him in, 519 

There stanch'd his wound ; and there, in daily doubt 
Whether to live or die, for many a week, 

491. "Worshipfully, short form of worthsMpfully, worthily, honorably. 
504. Diamond me. Tlie noun used as a verb, as prize inl. 32. 
513. Me is pleonastic— poetic use. 



ELAINE. 29 

Hid from the wide world's rumor by the grove 
Of poplars, with their noise of falling showers, 
And ever-tremulous aspen-trees, he lay. 

But on that day when Lancelot fled the lists, 525 

His party, knights of utmost jSTorth and West, 
Lords of waste marches, kings of desolate isles. 
Came round their great Pendragon, saying to him, 
' ' Lo, Sire, our knight thro' whom we won the day 
Hath gone sore wounded, and hath left his prize 530 
Untaken, crying that his prize is death." 
*' Heaven hinder," said the King, " that such an one. 
So great a knight as we have seen to-day — 
He seemed to me another Lancelot, 
Yea, twenty times I thought him Lancelot — 535 

He must not pass uncared for. Wherefore, rise, 

Gawain, and ride forth and find the knight. 
Wounded and wearied, needs must he be near. 

1 charge you that you get at once to horse. 

And, knights and kings, there breathes not one of you 540 
■^^^^i. Will deem this prize of ours is rashly given : 

His prowess was too wondrous. We will do him 

No customary honor : since the knight 

Came not to us, of us to claim the prize, 

Ourselves will send it after. Rise and take 545 

This diamond and deliver it and return 

And bring us where he is and how he fares 

And cease not from your quest until you find." 

So saying, from the carven flower above, 
To which it made a restless heart, he took, 550 

And gave, the diamond : then, from where he sat. 
At Arthur's right, with smiling face arose, 

527, Marches, A.-S. meare, a boundary, or border, of the land allotted 
to the families of the same blood. Mark came to be applied to the land 
within the boundary. This division of land, separating those 
akin, from strangers, was brought by the Anglo-Saxons into England. 
The coalescence of marks made shires. 

532. That such an one— should die. He is so agitated as to forget to 
finish the sentence. 

547. Bring us back word. 



30 ELAINE. 

With smiling face and frowning heart, a Prince 

In the mid miglit and flourisli of his May, 

Gawain, surnamed The Courteous, fair and strong, 555 

And after Lancelot, Tristram, and Geraint, 

And Gareth, a good knight, but therewithal 

Sir Modred's brother, of a crafty house. 

Nor often loyal to his word, and now 

Wroth that the king's command to sally forth 

In quest of whom he knew not made him leave 

The banquet, and concourse of knights and kings. 

So all in wrath he got to horse and went ; 
While Arthur to the banquet, dark in mood, 
Past, thinking, " Is it Lancelot who has come, 565 

Despite the wound he spake of, all for gain 
Of glory, and has added wound to wound. 
And ridd'n away to die?" So fear'd the King, 
And, after two days' tarriance there, return 'd. 
Then, when he saw the Queen, embracing, ask'd, 570 
' ' Love, are you yet so sick ? " " Nay, lord, ' ' she said. 
" And where is Lancelot ? " Then the Queen, amazed, 
"Was he not with you ? won he not your prize ? " 
" Nay, but one like him." "Why that like was he." 
And when the King demanded how she knew, 575 

Said, "Lord, no sooner had ye parted from us. 
Than Lancelot told me of a common talk 
That men went down before his spear at a touch 
But knowing he was Lancelot ; his great name 
Conquer' d : and therefore would he hide his name r 
From all men, ev'n the King, and to this end 
Had made the pretext of a hindering wound 
That he might joust unknown of all, and learn 
If his old prowess were in aught decay' d : 
And added, ' Our true Arthur, when he learns, 585 

Will well allow my pretext, as for gain of purer glory.' " 



554. Mid might, in the full vigor of his youth. 

558. Sir Modred's, a nephew of the King and a traitor to him, 

569. Tarriance, stay. 



ELAINE. 31 

Then replied the King, 
" Far lovelier in our Lancelot had it been, 
In lieu of idly dallying with the truth, 
To have trusted nie as he hath trusted you. 590 

Surely his King and most familiar friend 
Might well have kept his secret. True, indeed. 
Albeit I know my knights fantastical, 
So fine a fear in our large Lancelot 

Must needs have moved my laughter : now remains 595 
But little cause for laughter : his own kin — 
111 news, my Queen, for all who love him, this ! — 
His kith and kin, not knowing, set upon him ; 
So that he went sore wounded from the field : 
Yet good news too : for goodly hopes are mine 600 

That Lancelot is no more a lonely heart. 
He wore, against his wont, upon his helm 
A sleeve of scarlet, broider'd with great pearls. 
Some gentle maiden's gift." 

"Yea, lord," she said, 605 
" Your hopes are mine," and, saying that, she choked. 
And sharply turn'd about to hide her face. 
Past to her chamber, and there flung herself 
Down on the great King's couch, and writhed upon it. 
And clench'd her fingers till they bit the palm, 610 

And shriek' d out " Traitor " to the unhearing wall, 
Then fiash'd into wild tears, and rose again, 
And moved about her palace, proud and pale. 

Gawain the while thro' all the region round 
Rode with his diamond, wearied of the quest, 615 

Touch'd at all points, except the poplar grove. 
And came at last, tho' late, to Astolat. 
Whom, glittering in enamel'd arms, the maid 
Glanced at, and cried, ' ' What news from Camelot, lord ? 
What ofthe knight with the red sleeve?" "He won." 620 
" I knew it," she said. " But parted from the jousts 



610. Bit the palm, nails cut into it. Jealousy the cause. 
616. Poplar grove, where Lancelot was with the hermit. 



32 ELAINE. 

Hurt in the side,'' whereat she caught her breath ; 

Thro' her own side she felt the sharp lance go ; 

Thereon she smote her hand : well-nigh she swoon'd ; 

And, while he gazed wonderingly at her, came 625 

The lord of Astolat out, to whom the Prince 

Reported who he was, and on w^hat quest 

Sent, that he bore the prize and could not find 

The victor, but had ridden wildly round 

To seek him, and was Avearied of the search. 6j 

To whom the lord of Astolat, ' ' Bide with us. 

And ride no longer wildly, noble Prince ! 

Here was the knight, and here he left a shield ; 

This will he send or come for : furthermore 

Our son is with him : we shall hear anon, 635 

Needs must we hear." To this the courteous Prince 

Accorded with his wonted courtesy, — 

Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it. 

And stay'd ; and cast his eyes on fair Elaine : 

Where could be found face daintier? then her shape, — 

From forehead down to foot, perfect — again 641 

From foot to forehead exquisitely turn'd : 

"Well — if I bide, lo ! this wild flower for me ! " 

And oft they met among the garden yews. 

And there he set himself to play uj)on her 645 

With sallying wit, free flashes from a height 

Above her, graces of the court, and songs. 

Sighs, and slow smiles, and golden eloquence. 

And amorous adulation, till the maid 

Rebeird against it, saying to him, "Prince, 650 

O loyal nephew of our noble King, 

Why ask you not to see the shield he left. 

Whence you might learn his name ? Why slight your 

King, 
And lose the quest he sent you on, and prove 
No surer than our falcon yesterday, 655 

6.55. Falcon, pronounced fawk'n, the name of a bird of strong beak 
and claws, trained to hunt other birds and even foxes and hares. 
Falconry came into Europe, from the East, very early, and was for 
centuries a great amusement of kings and nobles. Has now disappeared 



ELAINE. 33 

Who lost the hern we slipt him at, and went 

To all the winds ? " *' Nay, by mine head," said he, 

*' I lose it, as we lose the lark in heaven, 

damsel, in the light of your blue eyes : 

But, an ye will it, let me see the shield." 660 

And when the shield was brought, and Gawain saw 
Sir Lancelot's azure lions, crown 'd with gold. 
Ramp in the field, he smote his thigh, and mock'd ; 
" Right was the King ! our Lancelot ! that true man ! " 
" And right was I," she answer' d merrily, " I, 665 

Who dream' d my knight the greatest knight of all." 
"And if Jdream'd," said Gawain, "that you love 
This greatest knight, your pardon ! lo, you know it ! 
Speak therefore : shall I waste myself in vain ? " 
Full simple was her answer, ' ' What know I ? 670 

My brethren have been all my fellowship. 
And I, when often they have talk'd of love, 
Wish'd it had been my mother, for they talk'd, 
Meseem'd, of what they knew not ; so myself^ 

1 know not if I know what true love is, 675 
But, if I know, then, if I love not him, 

Methinks there is none other I can love." 

"Yea, by God's death," said he, "ye love him well. 

But would not, knew ye what all others know, 

And whom he loves." " So be it," cried Elaine, 680 

And lifted her fair face and moved away : 

But he pursued her, calling, "Stay a little ! 

One golden minute's grace : he wore your sleeve : 

Would he break faith with one I may not name ? 

from Europe. The sportsman rode with the falcon resting on his wrist. 
Wlien game was discovered, tlie hood was talien from the head of tlie 
falcon; and, rising high above his destined prey, the bird swooped 
down npon it, seized it, and bore it away to the sportsman. 

656. Hern, heron, one of the wading birds. 

657. To all the winds, in every direction. 

663. Ramp, rampant, standing upright on his hind legs, in the field, 
or blank surface, of the shield; but not in the posture of springing, 
which would be salient. 

674. Meseem'd, it seemed to me, = the past tense of methinks. This 
is from A.-S. thyncan to appear, not thencan to think. The me is 
dative object. 

684. May not name, the queen. How unconscious is Elaine of Ga- 
wain's charms or even of his meaning! She is the one foil of all the 
chief characters of the poem except Arthur, 



34 ELAINE. 

Must our true man change like a leaf at last ? 685 

Nay — like enough : why then, far be it from me 

To cross our mighty Lancelot in his loves ! 

And, damsel, for I deem you know full well 

Where your great knight is hidden, let me leave 

j\[y quest with you ; the diamond also : here ! 690 

For, if you love, it will be sweet to give it ; 

And, if he loves, it will be sweet to have it 

From your own hand ; and, whether he love or not, 

A diamond is a diamond. Fare you well 

A thousand times ! — a thousand times farewell ! 695 

Yet, if he love, and his love hold, we two 

May meet at court hereafter : there, I think, 

So you will learn the courtesies of the court, 

We two shall know each other." 

Then he gave, 700 
And slightly kissed the hand to which he gave, 
The diamond, and, all wearied of the quest, 
Leapt on his horse, and, caroling, as he went, 
A true-love ballad, lightly rode away. 

Thence to the court he past ; there told the King 705 
What the King knew, ' ' Sir Lancelot is the knight. ' ' 
And added, " Sire, my liege, so much I learnt ; 
But fail'd to find him tho' I rode all round 
The region : but I lighted on the maid 
Whose sleeve he wore ; she loves him ; and to her, 710 
Deeming our courtesy is the truest law, 
I gave the diamond : she will render it ; 
For, by mine head, she knows his hiding-place." 

The seldom-frowning King frown' d, and replied, 
"Too courteous truly ! ye shall go no more 715 

On quest of mine, seeing that ye forget 
Obedience is the courtesy due to kings." 

697. May meet, if Lancelot brings her as liis bride to court. 

707. Liege, first applied, Slseat says, as here, to the lord and not to the 
vassal. Means free ; and liege lord = lord of a free band, privileged 
men. 



ELAINE. 35 

He spake and parted. Wroth, but all in awe, 
For twenty strokes of the blood, without a word. 
Linger' d that other, staring after him ; 720 

Then shook his hair, strode off, and buzz'd abroad 
About the maid of Astolat and her love. 
All ears were prick 'd at once, all tongues were loosed : 
' ' The maid of Astolat loves Sir Lancelot, 
Sir Lancelot loves the maid of Astolat." 725 

Some read the King's face, some the Queen's, and all 
Had marvel what the maid might be; but most 
Predoom'd her as unworthy. One old dame 
Came suddenly on the Queen with the sharp news. 
She, that had heard the noise of it before, 730 

But sorrowing Lancelot should have stoop'd so low, 
Marr'd her friend's point with pale tranquillity. 
So ran the tale, like fire about the court, 
Fire in dry stubble a nine days' wonder flared : 
Till ev'n the knights at banquet twice or thrice 735 

Forgot to drink to Lancelot and the Queen ; 
And, pledging Lancelot and the lily maid. 
Smiled at each other, while the Queen, who sat 
With lips severelj^ placid, felt the knot 
Climb in her throat, and with her feet unseen 740 

Crush' d the wild passion out against the floor 
Beneath the banquet, where the meats became 
As wormwood, and she hated all who pledged. 

But far away the maid in Astolat, 

719. Twenty strokes of the blood, twenty beats of the pulse, fifteen 
seconds or so. 

723. Ears were pricked. An equine figure. The horse pricks his ears, 
thrusts them toward the sound it hears or the startling sight it sees. 

728. Predoomed, i)ro.judged. The people are here illustrating the ten- 
dency to j udge harshly, rather than kindly, of one— the tendency which 
has caused the degeneracy of the word— doom meaning at first only 
judgment, decision. 

731. Note the point to this line. 

734. Nine days' wonder. A wonder was popularly supposed to last 
nine days. Cf. "It was seven of the nine days out of the wonder be- 
fore you came,"' in As Yoa IJke If. 

739. Felt the knot, felt herself choking with the passion of jealousy 
as they pledged, drank to, Lancelot and Elaine. 

743. Wormwood has no connection with?<;o?-»i or with wood. It is from 
A.-S. «'ery/i6d, ware-mood, mind-preserver; and points, says Skeat, to 



36 ELAINE. 

Her guiltless rival, she that ever kept 745 

The one-clay-seen Sir Lancelot in her heart, 

Crept to her father, Avhile he mused alone, 

Sat on his knee, stroked his gray face and said, 

" Father, you call me wilful, and the fault 

Is yours who let me have my will, and now, 750 

Sweet father, will you let me lose my wits ? " 

' * Nay, ' ' said he, ' ' surely ! " " Wherefore, let me hence, ' ' 

She answer' d, " and find out our dear Lavaine," 

" Ye will not lose your wits for dear Lavaine ; 

Bide,/' answer' d he : "we needs must hear anon 755 

Of him and of that other." "Ay," she said, 

"And of that other, for I needs must hence 

And find that other, Avheresoe'er he be. 

And with mine own hand give his diamond to him. 

Lest I be found as faithless in the quest 760 

As yon proud Prince who left the quest to me. 

Sweet father, I behold him in my dreams 

Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself. 

Death-pale, for lack of gentle maiden's aid. 

The gentler-born the maiden, the more bound, 765 

My father, to be sweet and serviceable 

To noble knights in sickness, as ye know, 

When these have worn their tokens ; let me hence 

I pray you." Then her father, nodding, said, 

" Ay, ay, the diamond : wit you well, my child, 770 

Right fain were I to learn this knight were whole. 

Being our greatest ; yea, and you must give it — 

And sure I think this fruit is hung too high 

For any mouth to gape for save a Queen's — 

Nay, I mean nothing : so then, get j^ou gone, 775 

Being so very wilful you must go. ' ' 

Lightly, her suit allow' d, she slipt away ; 
And, while she made her ready for her ride, 

the supposed curative properties of the plant in mental affections. 
The bitterness of the plant is that to which Tennyson here refers. 

773. This fruit, etc. He is above your level. Cf. Laertes' talk to 
Ophelia concerning Hamlet. 



ELAINE. 37 

Her father's latest word himim'd in her ear, 
' ' Being so very wilful you must go, ' ' 780 

And changed itself, and echoed in her heart, 
" Being so very wilful you must die." 
But she was happy enough, and shook it off 
As we shake off the bee that buzzes at us ; 
And in her heart she answer' d it and said, 785 

" What matter, so I help him back to life? " 
Then far away, with good Sir Torre for guide, 
Rode o'er the long backs of the bushless downs 
To Camelot, and, before the city-gates. 
Came on her brother with a happy face 790 

Making a roan horse caper and curvet 
^ For pleasure all about a field of flowers : 
'Whom when she saw, " Lavaine," she cried, "Lavaine, 
How fares my lord Sir Lancelot? " He, amazed, 
" Torre and Elaine ! why here ? Sir Lancelot ! 795 

How know ye my lord's name is Lancelot? " 
But when the maid had told him all her tale, 
Then turn'd Sir Torre, and, being in his moods, 
Left them, and under the strange-statued gate. 
Where Arthur's wars were render'd mystically, 800 

Past up the still rich city to his kin. 
His own far blood, which dwelt at Camelot ; 
And her, Lavaine across the poplar grove 
Led to the caves : there first she saw the casque 
Of Lancelot on the wall : her scarlet sleeve, 805 

Tho' carved and cut, and half the pearls away, 
Stream'd from it still ; and in her heart she laugh M, 
Because he had not loosed it from his helm, 
But meant once more, perchance, to tourney in it. 
And, when they gain'd the cell in which he slept, sio 
His battle-writhen arms and mighty hands 
Lay naked on the wolfskin, and a dream 
Of dragging down his enemy made them move. 
Then she that saw him lying unsleek, unshorn. 



791. Roan, a mixed color, white and red blended. 

802. Far blood, those distantly related. 

804. Casque, helm or helmet, a covering- for the head in battle. 



38 ELAINE. 

Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, 815 

Uttered a little, tender, dolorous cry. 

The sound, not wonted in a place so still, 

AVoke the sick knight ; and, while he roll'd his eyes 

Yet blank from sleep, she started to him, saying, 

" Your prize, the diamond sent you by the King : " 820 

His eyes glisten'd : she fancied, " Is it for me? " 

And, when the maid had told him all the tale 

Of King and Prince, the diamond sent, the quest 

Assign 'd to her not worthy of it, she knelt 

Full lowly by the corners of his bed, 825 

And laid the diamond in his open hand. 

Her face was near, and, as we kiss the child 

That does the task assign 'd, he kiss'd her face. 

At once she slipt like water to the floor. 

" Alas," he said, " your ride has wearied you. 830 

Rest must you have." " No rest for me," she said ; 

" Nay, for near you, fair lord, I am at rest." 

What might she mean by that ? his large, black eyes, 

Yet larger thro' his leanness, dwelt upon her. 

Till all her heart's sad secret blazed itself 835 

In the heart's colors on her sim^Dle face ; 

And Lancelot look'd, and was perplext in mind, 

And, being w^eak in body, said no more ; 

But did not love the color ; woman's love, 

Save one, he not regarded, and so turn'd, 840 

Sighing, and feign' d a sleep until he slept. 

Then rose Elaine and glided thro' the fields. 
And past beneath the wierdly-sculptured gates 
Far up the dim, rich city to her kin ; 
There bode the night : but woke with dawn, and past 845 
Down thro' the dim, rich city to the fields, 
Thence to the cave : so day by day she past 
In either twilight, ghost-like to and fro 



817. The sound, to which the still place was unaccustomed. 
819. Blank, no intelligence yet in them. 

834. Larger thro', seemingly larger, as his face had shrunk away, 
848. Either morning and evening. 



ELAINE. 39 

Gliding, and every day she tended him, 

And likewise many a night : and Lancelot 850 

Would, tho' he call'd his wound a little hurt 

Whereof he should be quickly whole, at times 

Brain-feverous in his heat and agony, seem 

Uncourteous, even he : but the meek maid 

Sweetly forbore him ever, being to him 855 

Meeker than any child to a rough nurse. 

Milder than any mother to a sick child. 

And never woman yet, since man's first fall. 

Did kindlier unto man, but her deep love 

Upbore her ; till the hermit, skill' d in all 860 

The simples and the science of that time. 

Told him that her fine care had saved his life. 

And the sick man forgot her simple blush, 

Would call her friend and sister, sweet Elaine, 

Would listen for her coming, and regret 865 

Her parting step, and held her tenderly. 

And loved her with all love except the love 

Of man and woman when they love their best, 

Closest, and sweetest, and had died the death 

In any knighly fashion for her sake. 870 

And, peradventure, had he seen her first, 

She might have made this and that other world 

Another world for the sick man ; but now 

The shackles of an old love straiten' d him. 

His honor rooted in dishonor stood, 875 

And faith unfaithful kejot him falsely true. 

Yet the great knight in his mid-sickness made 
Full many a holy vow and pure resolve. 
These, as but born of sickness, could not live : 

801. Simples, medicinal herbs. Webster says, "So called because 
eacli vegetable is supposed to possess its particular virtue and there- 
fore to constitute a simple remedy. 

869. Had died, would have died. 

874. Straiten'd, confined, prevented him. 

876. And faith, etc., his love for the Queen, cherished in disregard of 
his and her relations to the King, kept him true to her, but false to his 
lord. 

879. Could not live. The feebleness of vows to live better, made in 
sickness and under fear of death, is a common theme of writers. Repeat 
the couplet beginning, "When the devil was sick," 



40 ELAINE. 

For, when the blood ran kistier in him again, 880 

Full often the sweet image of one face. 

Making a treacherous quiet in his heart, 

Dispersed his resolution like a cloud. 

Then, if the maiden, while that ghostly grace 

Beam'd on his fancy, spoke, he answer' d not, 885 

Or short and coldly, and she knew right well 

What the rough sickness meant, but what this meant 

She knew not, and the sorrow dimm'd her sight, 

And drave her ere her time across the fields 

Far into the rich city, where alone 890 

She murmur' d, " Vain, in vain : it cannot be. 

He will not love me : how then ? must I die ? " 

Then as a little, helpless, innocent bird. 

That has but one plain passage of few notes, 

Will sing the simple passage o'er and o'er 895 

For all an April morning, till the ear 

Wearies to hear it, so the simple maid 

Went half the night, repeating, " Must I die? " 

And now to right she turn'd, and now to left. 

And found no ease in turning or in rest ; 900 

And "Him or death " she mutter' d, " Death or him," 

Again and like a burthen, "Him or death." 

But when Sir Lancelot's deadly hurt was whole. 
To Astolat returning rode the three. 
There, morn by morn, arraj^ing her sweet self 905 

In that w^herein she deem'd she look'd her best. 
She came before Sir Lancelot, for she thought, 
"If I be loved, these are my festal robes ; 
If not, the victim's flowers before he fall." 
And Lancelot ever prest upon the maid 910 

That she should ask some goodly gift of him 
For her own self or hers ; "And do not shun 
To speak the witeh most dear to your true heart ; 

884. Ghostly grace, the grace of the queen seen by him vaguely and 
in memory. 
889. Ere her time, before the evening twilight. 
902. Burthen, like the refrain of a song, the part often repeated. 



ELAINE. 41 

Such service have ye douc me that I make 

My will of yours, and Prince and Lord am I 915 

In mine own land, and w^hat I will I can." 

Then like a ghost she lifted up her face. 

But like a ghost without the pow^^r to speak. 

And Lancelot saw that she withheld her wish. 

And bode among them yet a little space 920 

Till he should learn it ; and one morn it chanced 

He found her in among the garden yews, 

And said, " Delay no longer, speak your wish, 

Seeing I must go to-day : " then out she brake, 

"Going? and we shall never see you more. 925 

And I must die for want of one bold word. ' ' 

" Speak : that I live to hear," he said, "is yours." 

Then suddenly and passionately she spoke : 

" I have gone mad. I love you : let me die." 

" Ah, sister," answer'd Lancelot, " what is this ?" 930 

And, innocently extending her white arms, 

" Your love," she said, "your love — to be your wife." 

And Lancelot answer'd, "Had I chos'n to wed, 

I had been wedded earlier, sw^eet Elaine : 

But now there never will be wife of mine." 935 

" No, no," she cried, " I care not to be wife. 

But to be with you still, to see your face. 

To serve you, and to follow you thro' the world." 

And Lancelot answer'd, " Nay, the world, the world. 

All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart 940 

To interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue 

To blare its OM'n interpretation — nay, 

Full ill then should I quit your brother's love, 

And your good father's kindness." And she said, 

" Not to be with you, not to see your face — 945 

Alas for me, then, my good days are done." 

" Nay, noble maid," he answer'd, " ten times nay ! 



916. Can do. 

927. That I am alive to hear is due to your nursing care. 

942. Blare, roar; used generally of trumpets. The root the same as 
that of blazon. 

943. Quit, to repay, to be discharged of; L. quietus, free, satisfied. 



42 ELAINE. 

This is not love : but love's first flash in youth, 

Most common : yea I know it of mine own self : 

And you yourself will smile at your own self 950 

Hereafter, when j^ou yield your flower of life 

To one more fitly yours, not thrice j'our age : 

And then will I, for true you are and sweet 

Beyond mine old belief in womanhood, 

More specially, should your good knight be poor, 955 

Endow 3'ou with broad land and territory, 

Even to the half my realm beyond the seas, 

So that would make you happy ; furthermore, 

Ev'n to the death, as tho' ye were my blood. 

In all your quarrels will I be your knight. 960 

This will I do, dear damsel, for your sake, 

And more than this I cannot." 

While he spoke 
She neither blush' d nor shook, but deathly-pale 
Stood grasping what was nearest, then replied, 965 

"Of all this will I nothing ; " and so fell, 
And thus they bore her swooning to her tower. 

Then spake, to whom thro' those black walls of ye^\ 
Their talk had pierced, her father. "Ay, a flash, 
I fear me, that will strike my blossom dead. 970 

Too courteous are you, fair Lord Lancelot. 
I pray you, use some rough discourtesy 
To blunt or break her passion." 

Lancelot said, 
" That were against me : what I can I Mill ; " 97^^ 

And there that day remain' d, and toward even 
Sent for his shield : full meekly rose the maid, 
Stript off the case, and gave the naked shield ; 

951. Your flower of life, your heart. 

957. Realm beyond the seas. See Introduction, "Lancelot." 
95.S. So that, if that. 

960. In all your quarrels, the knights of chivalry rode about, avenging 
wrongs, especiallv of the gentler sex. 
968. Then spake he. 
975. That were against me, I cannot do it. 



ELAINE. 43 

Then, when she heard his horse upon the stones, 
Unclasping, flung the casement back, and look'd 980 
Down on his helm, from which her sleeve had gone. 
And Lancelot knew the little clinking sound ; 
And she by tact of love was well aware 
That Lancelot knew that she was looking at him. 
And 3'et he glanced not up, nor waved his hand, 985 

Nor bade farewell, but sadly rode away. 
This was the one discourtesy that he used. 

So in her tower alone the maiden sat : 

His very shield was gone ; only the case, 

Her own poor work, her empty labor, left. 990 

But still she heard him, still his picture form'd 

And grew between her and the pictured wall. 

Then came her father, saying in low tones, 

" Have comfort," whom she greeted quietly. 

Then came her brethren, saying, " Peace to thee, 995 

Sweet sister," whom she answered with all calm. 

But, when they left her to herself again, 

Death, like a friend's voice from a distant field 

Approaching thro' the darkness, call'd ; the owls' 

Wailing had power upon her, and she mixt 1000 

Her fancies with the sallow-rifted glooms 

Of evening, and the moanings of the wind. 

And in those days she made a little song. 
And call'd her song " The song of Love and Death." 
And sang it : sweetly could she make and sing. 1005 

" Sweet is true love tho' given in vain, in vain ; 
And sweet is death, who puts an end to pain ; 
I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 



Love, thou art bitter ; sweet is death to me. 
O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. 



990. What figure in labor ? 

1001. Sallow-rifted glooms, the glooms of evening streaked with pale 
yellow. 
1009. Death must be bitter. The little song overflows with pathos. 



44 ELAINE. 

" Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away, 
Sweet death, that seems to make us loveleLS clay, 
I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 

" I fain would follow love, if that could be ; 1015 

I needs must follow death, who calls for me ; 
Call and I follow, I follow ! let me die." 

High with the last line scaled her voice ; and this, 
All in a fiery dawning wild with wind, 
That shook her tower, the brothers heard, and thought 
With shuddering, "Hark the Phantom of the house 1021 
That ever shrieks before a death," and calPd 
The father, and all three in hurry and fear 
Ran to her, and lo ! the blood-red light of dawn 
Flared on her face, she shrilling, " Let me die ! " 1025 

As when we dwell upon a word we know. 
Repeating, till the word we know so well 
Becomes a wonder and we know not why. 
So dwelt the father on her face and thought, 
' ' Is this Elaine ? ' ' till back the maiden fell, 1030 

Then gave a languid hand to each, and lay. 
Speaking a still good-morrow with her eyes. 
At last she said, "Sweet brothers, yester night 
I seem'd a curious, little, maid again. 
As happy as when we dwelt among the woods, 1035 

And when ye used to take me with the flood 
Up the great river in the boatman's boat. 
Only, ye would not pass beyond the cape 
That has the poplar on it : there ye fixt 
Your limit, oft returning with the tide. 1040 

And yet I cried because ye would not pass 
Beyond it, and far up the shining flood 
Until we found the palace of the king. 
And yet ye would not ; but this night I dream' d 



1018, Scaled, ran up the scale, rose in pitch. 

1019. Fiery dawning, early, tlie clouds still of a fiery red. 
1021. Phantom, etc., a superstitious belief. 

1034. I seem'd to be. 



ELAINE. " 45 

That I was all alone upon the flood, 1045 

And then I said, ' Now shall I have my will : ' 

And there I woke, but still the wish remain 'd. 

So let me hence that I may pass at last 

Beyond the poplar and far up the flood, 

Until I find the palace of the king. 1050 

There w^ill I enter in among them all. 

And no man there will dare to mock at me ; 

But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me, 

And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me ; 

Gawain, who bade a thousand farewells to me, 1055 

Lancelot, who coldly went nor bade me one : 

And there the King will know me and my love. 

And there the Queen herself will pity me. 

And all the gentle court will welcome me. 

And after my long voyage I shall rest !" 1060 

" Peace," said her father, " O my child, ye seem 
Light-headed, for what force is yours to go 
So far, being sick ? and wherefore would ye look 
On this proud fellow again, who scorns us all ? " 

1065 

And bluster into stormy sobs, and say, 
" I never loved him : an I meet with him, 
I care not howsoever great he be. 
Then will I strike at him and strike him down. 
Give me good fortune, I will strike him dead, 1070 

For this discomfort he hath done the house." 

To which the gentle sister made reply, 
'* Fret not yourself, dear brother, nor be wroth, 
Seeing it is no more Sir Lancelot's fault 
Not to love me, than it is mine to love 1075 

Him of all men who seems to me the highest." 
" Highest ? " the father answer' d, echoing "highest? " 
(He meant to break the passion in her) " nay, 

1047. The wish to go beyond the poplar, up to the palace of the King. 
1067. An I, see 1. 219. 



46 ELAINE. 

Daughter, I know not what you call the highest ; 

But this I know, for all the peoi)le know it, 1080 

He loves the Queen, and in an open shame : 

And she returns his love in open shame. 

If this be high, what is it to be low ? ' ' 

Then spake the lily maid of Astolat, 
* ' Sweet father, all too faint and sick am I 1085 

For anger : these are slanders : never yet 
Was noble man but made ignoble talk. 
He makes no friend who never made a foe. 
But now it is nij^ glory to have loved 
One peerless, without stain : so let me pass, 1090 

My father, howsoe'er I seem to you. 
Not all unhappy, having loved God's best 
And greatest, tho' my love had no return : 
Yet, seeing ye desire your child to live, 
Thanks, but ye work against your own desire ; 1095 

For, if I could believe the things ye say, 
I should but die the sooner ; wherefore cease, 
Sweet father, and bid call the ghostly man 
Hither, and let me shrive me clean, and die." 

So when the ghostly man had come and gone, noo 
She with a face, bright as for sin forgiven, 
Besought Lavaine to write, as she devised, 
A letter, word for word ; and, when he ask'd, 
" Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord? 
Then will I bear it gladly ; " she replied, ncs 

'' For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world. 
But I myself must bear it." Tlien he wrote 
The letter she devised ; which, being writ 
And folded, " O sweet father, tender and true. 
Deny me not," she said — " ye never yet mo 

1087, This poem, like all of Tennyson's, is gemmed with epigram- 
matic lines, full of wisdom. 

1090. Pass, go on, die. We call the funeral-bell the pa.fsin^-heU. 
The last poem of the Idi/ls of the King is the Passing of Arthur. 

1098. Ghostly man, the priest. Ghostly (the h inserted) from A.-S. 
geist, the spirit, or soul. 

1099. Shrive me, hear my confession, and absolve me from all sin. 



ELAINE. 47 

Denied my fancies — tliis, liowever strange, 

My latest : lay the letter in my hand 

A little ere I die, and close the hand 

Upon it ; I shall guard it even in death. 

And when the heat is gone from out my heart, H15 

Tlien take the little bed on which I died 

For Lancelot's love, and deck it like the Queen's 

For richness, and me also like the Queen 

In all I have of rich, and lay me on it. 

And let there be prepared a chariot-bier nao 

To take me to the river, and a barge 

Be ready on the river, clothed in black. 

I go in state to court to meet the Queen. 

There surely I shall speak for mine own self. 

And none of you can speak for me so well. 1125 

And therefore let our dumb, old man alone 

Go with me ; he can steer and row, and he 

Will guide me to that jmlace, to the doors." 

She ceased : her father j)romised ; whereupon 
She grew so cheerful that they deeni'd her death 1130 
Was rather in the fantasy than the blood. 
But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh 
Her father laid the letter in her hand, 
And closed the hand upon it, and she died. 
So that day there was dole in Astolat. H35 

But when the next sun brake from underground. 
Then, those two brethren slowly, with bent brows. 
Accompanying the sad chariot-bier. 
Past like a shadow through the field, that shone 
Full-summer, to that stream whereon the barge, H40 
Pall'd all its length in blackest samite, lay. 
There sat the lifelong creature of the house. 
Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck. 



Ills. For richness, lu point of richness. 

1120. Chariot-bier, a wheeled vehicle on which a dead body is borne, 

1135. Dole, grief. 

1187, Bent brows, heads bent in sorrow. 

1140. Full-summer, in the light of niid-sunimer, 

1141. Pall'd, draped. 



48 ELAINE. 

Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face. 

So those two brethren from the chariot took 1145 

And on the black decks laid her in her bed, 

Set in her hand a lily, o'er her hung 

The silken case with braided blazonings, 

And kiss'd her quiet brows, and saying to her, 

" Sister, farewell for ever," and again, 1150 

'' Farewell, sweet sister," parted all in tears. 

Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead, 

Steer' d by the dumb, went upward with the flood — 

In her right hand the lily, in her left 

The letter — all her bright hair streaming down — 1155 

And all the coverlid was cloth of gold 

Drawn to her waist, and she herself in w^hite 

All but her face, and that clear-featured face 

Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead 

But fast asleep, and lay as though she smiled. 1160 

That day Sir Lancelot at the palace craved 
Audience of Guinevere, to give at last 
The price of half a realm, his costly gift. 
Hard-won and hardly won with bruise and blow, 
With deaths of others, and almost his own, — 1165 

The nine-years-fought-for diamonds : for he saw 
One of her house, and sent him to the Queen 
Bearing his wish, whereto the Queen agreed 
With such and so unmoved a majesty 
She might have seem'd her statue, but that he, 1170 

Low-drooj)ing till he well nigh kiss'd her feet 
For loyal awe, saw with a sidelong eye 
The shadow of a piece of pointed lace, 
In the Queen's shadow, vibrate on the walls, 
And parted, laughing in his courtly heart. 1175 



1174. Vibrate, she might have seemed a statue, but, by the vibration 
of the shadow of the lace, the courtier Itnew she was trembling with 
emotion. 

1176. Oriel, a windowed recess in a room. Any small room more pri- 
vate and better adorned than the rest of the house. Summer-side, 
sunny-side. 



ELAINE. 4^ 

Vine-clad, of Arthur's palace toward the stream, 

They met, and Lancelot, kneeling, utter'd, ''Queen, 

Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy. 

Take, what I had not won except for you, 1180 

These jewels, and make me happy, making them 

An armlet for the roundest arm on earth. 

Or necklace for a neck to which the swan's 

Is tawnier than her cygnet's : these are words : 

Your beauty is your beauty, and I sin 1185 

In speaking, yet O grant my worship of it 

Words, as we grant grief tears. Such sin in words 

Perchance we both can j)ardon : but, my Queen, 

I hear of rumors flying through your court. 

Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife, ngo 

Should have in it an absoluter trust 

To make up that defect : let rumors be : 

When did not rumors fly ? these, as I trust 

That you trust me in your own nobleness, 

I may not well believe that you believe." 1195 

While thus he spoke, half turn'd away, the Queen 
Brake from the vast oriel-embowering vine 
Leaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off. 
Till all the place whereon she stood was green ; 
Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive hand 1200 

Received at once and laid aside the gems 
There on a table near her, and replied: 

' * It may be I am quicker of belief 
Than you believe me. Lancelot of the Lake, 
Our bond is not the bond of man and wife. 1205 

1182. Armlet, literally a small arm, and then an ornament for the arm. 

1184. Tawnier. Tawny is another spelling for tunny, brown, sun- 
burnt. The passage seems to mean that the necklace into which she 
was to make the diamonds would be as much browner than her neck 
as the mother swan's neck is browner than her young swan's, the 
cygnet's. 

1187. Words, etc., allow me to put my feeling into words, as we allow 
one in grief to cry. 

1189. Rumors flying, that her regard for him was waning. He argues 
that he and she were not bound together by the marriage tie ; and 
that to compensate for this lack, they should voluntarily trust each 
other more completely. 



50 ELAINE. 

This good is in it, whatsoe'er of ill, 

It can be broken easier. I for you 

This many a year have done despite and wrong 

To one whom ever in my heart of hearts 

I did acknowledge nobler. What are these ? 1210 

Diamonds for me ? they had been thrice their worth 

Being your gift, had you not lost your own. 

To loyal hearts the value of all gifts 

Must vary as the giver's. Not for me ! 

For her ! for your new fancy. Only this 1215 

Grant me, I pray you : have you joys apart. 

I doubt not that, however changed, you keep 

So much of what is graceful : and myself 

Would shun to break those bounds of courtesy 

In which, as Arthur's queen, I move and rule : 1220 

So cannot speak my mind. An end to this ! 

A strange one ! yet I take it with Amen. 

So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls ; 

Deck her with these ; tell her she shines me down : 

An armlet for an arm to which the Queen's 1225 

Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck 

O as much fairer as a faith once fair 

Was richer than these diamonds ! hers, not mine — 

Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself, 

Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will — 230 

She shall not have them." 

Saying which she seized. 
And, through the casement, standing wide for heat. 
Flung them, and down they flash' d, and smote the 

stream. 
Then from the smitten surface flash 'd, as it were, 1235 



1210. Acknowledge nobler. We are grateful that this confession is ex- 
torted from her. Read Guinevere to see how sinful she afterwards 
became, and then how sincerely penitent. 

1212. Your own worth. 

1218. Another golden line. 

1221. Cannot speak, etc., as queen I cannot reprove you if you and 
Elaine exhibit your love before me, so have your joys apart from me 
—elsewhere. 

1229. The woman '^s heart here speaks. 

i233. Standing wide, open on account of the heat. 



ELAINE. 51 

Diamonds to meet them, and they past away. 

Then, while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disgust 

At love, life, all things, on the window ledge. 

Close underneath his eyes, and right across 

Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge 1240 

Whereon the lily maid of Astolat 

Lay smiling, like a star in blackest night. 

But the wild Queen, who saw not, burst away 
To weep and wail in secret ; and the barge, 
On to the palace-doorway sliding, paused. 1245 

There two stood arm'd, and kept the door ; to whom, 
All up the marble stair, tier over tier, 
Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes that ask'd, 
"What is it ?" But that oarsman's haggard face. 
As hard and still as is the face that men 1250 

Shape to their fancy's eye from broken rocks 
On some cliff-side, appall' d them, and they said, 
" He is enchanted, cannot speak — and she. 
Look how she sleex)s — the Fairy Queen, so fair ! 
Yea, but how pale ! what are they ? tiesh and blood ? 1255 
Or come to take the King to fairy land ? 
For some do hold our Arthur cannot die. 
But that he passes into fairy land." 

While thus they babbled of the King, the King 
Came girt with knights : then turn'd the tongueless man 
From the half-face to the full eye, and rose 1261 

And pointed to the damsel, and the doors. 
So Arthur bade the meek Sir Percivale 
And pure Sir Galahad to uplift the maid ; 
And reverently they bore her into hall. 1265 

Then came the fine Gawain and wonder'd at her. 
And Lancelot later came and mused at her, 
And last the Queen herself and pitied her : 



1242. Like a star, etc., the body in white relieved upon the pall of the 
samite. 

1261. To the full eye, turning from a side view to look the king full in 
the eye. 



52 ELAINE. 

But Arthur spied the letter in her hand, 

Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it ; this was all : 1270 

" Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, 
I, sometime call'd the maid of Astolat, 
Come, for you left me taking no farewell, 
Hither to take my last farewell of you. 
I loved you, and my love had no return, 1275 

And therefore my true love has been my death. 
And therefore to our lady Guinevere, 
And to all other ladies, I make moan. 
Pray for my soul, and yield me burial. 
Pray for my soul, thou too, Sir Lancelot, 1280 

As thou art a knight peerless." 

Thus he read, 
And, ever in the reading, lords and dames 
Wept, looking often from his face who read 
To hers which lay so silent, and at times 1285 

So touch' d were they, half-thinking that her lips 
Who had devised the letter moved again. 

Then freely spoke Sir Lancelot to them all ; 
" My lord, liege Arthur, and all ye that hear. 
Know that for this most gentle maiden's death 1290 

Right heavy am I ; for good she was and true, 
But loved me with a love beyond all love 
In women, whomsoever I have known. 
Yet to be loved makes not to love again ; 
Not at my years, however it hold in youth. 1295 

I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave 
No cause, not willingly, for such a love : 
To this I call my friends in testimony, 
Her brethren, and her father, who himself 
Besought me to be plain and blunt, and use, 1300 

To break her passion, some discourtesy 
Against my nature : what I could, I did. 

1272. Sometime, formerly. 

1297. Not. The second negative here strengthens the first. 



ELAINE. 53 

I left her, and I bade her no farewell. 
Though, had I dreamt the damsel would have died, 
I might have put my wits to some rough use, 1305 

And help'd her from herself." 

Then said the Queen, 
(Sea was her wrath, yet working after storm) 
" Ye might at least have done her so much grace. 
Fair lord, as would have help'd her from her death." 
He raised his head, their eyes met and hers fell, 131 1 

He adding, " Queen, she would not be content 
Save that I wedded her, which could not be. 
Then might she follow me through the world, she ask'd ; 
It could not be. I told her that her love 1315 

Was but the flash of youth, would darken down 
To rise hereafter in a stiller flame 
Toward one more worthy of her. Then would T, 
More specially were he she wedded poor. 
Estate them with large land and territory 1320 

In mine own realm beyond the narrow seas. 
To keep them in all joyance ; more than this 
I could not ; this she would not, and she died." 

He pausing, Arthur answer' d, " O my knight, 
It will be to thy worship, as my knight, 1325 

And mine, as head of all our Table Round, 
To see that she be buried worshipf ully. ' ' 

So toward that shrine which then in all the realm 
Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went 
The marshal' d order of their Table Round, 1330 

And Lancelot sad beyond his wont to see 
The maiden buried, not as one unknown. 
Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, 
And mass, and rolling music, like a queen. 
And, when the knights had laid her comely head 1335 
Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings, 

1308. Sea was her wrath, her wrath raged like the sea after a storm. 
1325. Worship, honor. See 1. 491. 



54 ELAINE. 

Then Arthur spake among them, " Let her tomb 

Be costly ; and her image thereupon. 

And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet 

Be carven, and her lily in her hand. 1340 

And let the story of her dolorous voyage 

For all true hearts be blazon' d on her tomb 

In letters gold and azure ! " which was wrought 

Thereafter ; but, when now the lords and dames 

And people, from the high door streaming, brake 1345 

Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen, 

Who mark'd Sir Lancelot where he moved apart, 

Drew near, and sigh'd, in passing, " Lancelot, 

Forgive me ; mine was jealousy in love." 

He answer' d with his eyes upon the ground, 1350 

" That is love's curse ; pass on, my Queen, forgiven." 

But Arthur, who beheld his cloudy brows, 

ApjDroach'd him, and with full affection flung 

One arm about his neck, and spake and said : 

' ' Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have 1355 
Most love and most affiance, for I know 
What thou hast been in battle by my side, 
And many a time have watched thee at the tilt 
Strike down the lusty and long-practised knight, 
And let the younger and unskill'd go by 1360 

To w^in his honor and to mako his name, 
And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man 
Made to be loved ; but now I would to God, 
For the wild j^eople say wild things of thee. 
Thou couldst have loved this maiden, shaped, it seems. 
By God for thee alone, and from her face, 1366 

If one may judge the living by the dead. 
Delicately pure and marvelously fair. 
Who might have brought thee, now a lonely man. 
Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sons 1370 

Born to the glory of thy name and fame, 
My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the Lake." 

1356. Affiance, trust. 



ELAINj:. 65 

Then answer' d Lancelot, "Fair she was, my King, 
Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be. 
To doubt her fairness were to want an eye, 1375 

To doubt her pureness were to want a heart — 
Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love 
Could bind him, but free love will not be bound." 

" Free love, so bound, were freest," said the King. 
" Let love be free ; free love is for the best : 1380 

And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, 
What should be best, if not so pure a love 
Clothed in so pure a loveliness ? yet thee 
She fail'd to bind, though being, as I think, 
Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know." 1385 

And Lancelot answer' d nothing, but he went. 
And, at the inrunning of a little brook, 
Sat by the river in a cove, and watch 'd 
The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes 
And saw the barge that brought her, moving down, 1390 
Far-off,, a blot upon the stream, and said 
Low in himself, " Ah ! simple heart and sweet. 
Ye loved me, damsel, surely with a love 
Far tenderer than my Queen's. Pray for thy soul? 
Ay, that will I. Farewell too — now at last — 1395 

Farewell, fair lily. ' Jealousy in love ? ' 
Not rather dead love's harsh heir, jealous pride? 
Queen, if I grant the jealousy as of love. 
May not your crescent fear for name and fame 
Speak, as it waxes, of a love that wanes ? 1400 

Why did the King dwell on my name to me ? 
Mine own name shames me, seeming a reproach, 
Lancelot, whom the Lady of the Lake 
Stole from his mother — as the story runs. 

1381. After heaven, next to heaven. 

1891. A blot, a speck. 

lo95. Now at last, he had not bidden her farewell on leaving Astolat. 

1898. Jealousy in love did the Queen call her feeling? Is it not rather 
jealous pride, which conies only when love is dead? 

1899. Crescent, growing. 

1400. Waxes, grows— obsolescent. 



56 ELAINE. 

She chanted snatches of mysterious song 1405 

Heard on the winding waters ; eve and morn 

She kiss'd me saying, 'Thou art fair, my child. 

As a king's son,' and often in her arms 

She bare me, pacing on the duskj^ mere. 

Would she had drown'd me in it, where'er it be ! 1410 

For what am I ? what profits me my name 

Of greatest knight ? I fought for it, and have it : 

Pleasure to have it, none ; to lose it, pain ; 

Now grown a part of me : but what use in it ? 

To make men worse by making my sin known ? 1415 

Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great? 

Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man 

Not after Arthur's heart ! I needs must break 

These bonds that so defame me : not without 

She wills it : would I, if she will'd it? nay, 1420 

Who knows? but, if I would not, then may God, 

I pray Him, send a sudden angel down 

To seize me by the hair and bear me far, 

And fling me deep into that forgotten mere. 

Among the tumbled fragments of the hills." 1425 

So groan 'd Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain, 
Not knowing he should die a holy man. 

1409. Mere, sea; L. mare. Kept in our mermaid, meremaid, and in 
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